Credit & Debt

Got your eye on a new laptop, or a flashy, overpriced digital camera?

Now, at the same time are you low on funds, and seriously contemplating taking those damn credit card companies (who have been flooding your mailbox recently) up on their offer to secure a way too heavy APR line of credit out for it? Well, you better stop right there … before you do anything stupid (truth is: those cards and their companies suck, and they rip people off at the same time) and read the rest of this article. Ready? Ok, let’s move on … Continued

A lot of people just ignore their debt (I don’t know how they do it).

Then there are those wimps who are afraid to contact their creditors. They don’t really seem to understand the step-by-step consequences of not even trying to pay their bills, which I have laid out, in chronological order: 1) your credit rating will definitely be affected, 2) your creditors will seek a judgment in an effort to get paid, 3) your bill will be turned over to a debt collector, 4) your property might be repossessed and your wages may be garnished, and finally 5) you more than likely will be forced into bankruptcy.

While we don’t have enough time here for specific details of the often complicated measures people take in order to get out of debt, we do have enough to review the correct ways to start turning this problem around: Continued

Cars are such a pain-in-the-a%$, but without them our life would turn snail-like super fast! Sure, we could jump on the old bicycle and ride the ten miles to work, pick up a date or go grocery shopping (yea right) but then again … no we can’t (it’ll never work) because we, as Americans, are way too lazy and proud … you know this, man!

Ok, now that we have already established the fact that we need our cars, what about the people who don’t have one yet, or the people who keep dumping their hard-earned money into an old jalopy? It is for these exact same people that the rest of this article is written (for those of you who have a nice car, scram Sam. Did they leave? Good! Let’s proceed, shall we?). Well, you’re almost certainly going to need a loan to purchase your new car (unless you’re independently wealthy, in which case what are you doing reading my nonsense? Let me learn from you). When buying a new car, there is a couple of very simple, money-saving methods that are so obvious they are often overlooked. Not any longer … Continued

Americans are the biggest borrowers in the world. We’re also the most in debt!

“Why is this,” you ask? Well, after World War II, our grandparents (or parents for you old-heads) had a large increase in money available to them for both consumer goods and to help establish credit. As they acquired more and more household wealth, they also became more credit-worthy, both to the lenders and in their own eyes. The result has been the complete, social acceptance of debt.

Skip to today, and payments on mortgage and consumer debts absorb almost three-fourths of the average citizen’s annual income (and that’s after taxes). For most people, there’s not much left after this. A lot of Americans are being forced to use one credit card to pay on another, or to delay one bill so another overdue bill can be paid. To top this off, personal bankruptcies had doubled in the past decade, and most of the people who filed for them had jobs. Unexpected bills and reductions in worker’s pay were the root causes for these bankruptcies. Americans can simply not afford any more debt. Scary to think about, right? Continued

This is the way I see economic materialism (plain and simple) …

You come into this world with nothing and when you die guess what … you also have nothing! I know it sounds kind of depressing (actually, really depressing) but it is not, if you think about it. Chew on this for a second: material possessions are ok, but they will always just be things (nothing more, nothing less). You’ll forget about them when they’re long and gone, but you can’t say the same about your friends and family (who’ll help you make the lasting memories). Now what if you only had six months to live? Would you still care about these trivial things, which the advertisers and marketers say that you MUST have? Yea, probably not! I know that it’s pretty fun to buy nice things, but I also know that this stuff can get lost, stolen or ruined (or just plain forgotten about in the back of your closet or garage)! Continued