Live Within Means? WTF?

A letter in GN goes...

Live within means
Something is off in the article "Spiralling rents force couples to live apart" (Gulf News, April 1). The Filipino couple couldn't afford to rent a flat on their own, but their combined salary is sufficient to share a flat with another family. An income of Dh5,300 per month and they could not pay Dh1,200-Dh2,000 as rent? Where is the rest of the money spent? Supposed financial hardships are often self-imposed.
Many Asian expatriates have massive local debts used to buy land, homes and businesses back home. Couples with lower wages find a way to stay together and live within their means.
From A Reader
Dubai
Name withheld by request


Yet another anonymous bum who doesn't understand the gravity of the situation.

Point #1. Just because you don't have a massive debt and are prudent enough not to have one, doesn't mean the rest of the expats are.
Point #2. When a majority of expats are finding it hard to find affordable accomodation, you are talking of 'living within means'? Isn't the problem 'Impossible to even live within means'?

In a nutshell, all of you anonymous gutless mice ---
|| Whenever you read an article, please bear in mind that a newspaper report is a generalized account of the subject matter.||

Prices of almost everything in the UAE is on the rise and we have people writing in such letters. A cup of tea and a can of cola are the only things still available at the same prices.

Couples don't mean to come here and scrape on wafer thin salaries. Yes, they have committments back home, just like any normal human being would have. They were people who came here when the times were good, which was a distant 36 months back. Now they've invested time into a job and all of a sudden they're being juiced of all they have. The natural and logical option would be to leave. Ahh...if all of us were as smart as that the world would've been such a better place. I wouldn't even be here in the first place, would I? And so would you. So what the hell are you doing here anyway? You've -

1. Come here for a better salary because you wouldn't be paid that much in your own country (I'm guessing that wouldn't be an Asian country, judging by the way you've penned "Many Asian expatriates").
2. Your relative ignorance of this situation implies that you are well to do.
3. You just can't understand why people cannot live within their means.

I wish you could. Because you do get paid well in your country. Yet you come here to live a luxurious tax free life, in that cozy tree trunk of an island of yours.