Don’t spend what you aint got. It’s just not worth it.
By Daniel at 7 December, 2009, 9:56 am
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Sometime in the past two or three generations, Americans got addicted to “Stuff”. Cars, bigger homes, electronic gadgets (how many flat-screen TV’s, iPods, laptops, remote controls do you have in your home???), you name it, we had to have it. Katy bar the door, we went shopping. Never mind that our take home pay minus our monthly purchases put us solidly in the red at the end of the month. That’s what home equity lines of credit are for! Want another credit card, with a US$10K line of credit? It’s a simple as walking to your mailbox. Shazam, there it is, honey, let’s go get that home theater, take that trip, upgrade the auto, etc. etc. ad infinitum. At some point, we all lost our grip on reality, and let hubris and greed take over. The largest investment a family ever makes, the roof over their head, became an ATM. Lots of people leveraged their HOME (!?) to satisfy the need for more “Stuff”, and look where it got them.
Lot’s of women went to work, leaving strangers and a defunct public school system to raise our children, in an effort to augment the family budget, and buy more “Stuff”. And now we all wonder why our kids can’t find Ohio on the map.
Then when the proverbial @#$%&! hit the fan, and the piper came to collect on the loans, so many threw up their hands and shouted, “Basta, I can’t pay anymore…., do you want my “Stuff”?” 29% APR on the gold-card just got awfully heavy, didn’t it?
Look, I like my “Stuff” just as much as the next guy (or girl), but I sure didn’t put my home, my way of life, my sanity, up for hock to get more.
If nothing else, this “Great Recession”, ought to open our collective eyes to the glaring necessity of saving. Sure, you have to teach your kids to stay off the dope, study hard, respect their fellow man, act responsibly, etc. But perhaps the best lesson we could all teach them is fiscal accountability.
Don’t spend what you aint got. It’s just not worth it.
- wimryan
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