The Lesson
I’m amazed at the amount of debt
people pile up during the holidays. You
see them maxing out their credit cards just to make sure Little Johnny gets the
latest smart phone, or Little Suzie gets the latest $100 pair of jeans that she
will outgrow in a matter of months. Then
they stress about how they will ever get the bill paid off. Why a 14-year-old needs a smart phone or a
$100 pair of jeans is beyond me. Yes, I
know about peer pressure and keeping up with the Jones’s but come on, whatever
happened to living within your means or saying no. My Mom used to do the same for my sister and
me. There was never anything we didn’t
want for when it came to the holidays.
How do I know? Well, my Mom
called me one time asking me to help her pay off some huge credit cards bills
so my Dad did not find out. So I
did. Debt is a part of life but
consciously putting ourselves in a financial pickle rather than saying no or
using logic, does nothing but keep the cycle going.
One of my biggest financial
blunders was getting rid of a perfectly good Toyota pickup in order to get a
Porsche just to impress “the girls.” Between
the cost of the car, rent, insurance, etc., I only had $35 left over to last me
two weeks between paychecks. I became a
big fan of boil n serve meals and bread sammiches. I also lived off the credit card until I
ended up getting rid of the car before it put me in the poor house. That little event cost me a ton of money, but
the lesson I learned was priceless, “Think before you spend.”
I’m concerned about the lesson we
are teaching the next generation. I want
it; therefore, I get it. You see the occasional
news story about a college student whining about being $20,000 in debt on
credit cards yet they try to portray themselves as a victim of the credit card
companies. Hmmm, they filled out the
form, they signed the form, they used the card to buy things they could not
afford yet that is the fault of the credit card companies? Absolutely Not!
We need to be teaching lessons
like the A word – accountability, R word – responsibility, B word – budgeting,
and my favorite B word – boundaries.
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