Last
year credit card companies spent well over $3 ½ billion in an effort
to get you to go even deeper into debt.  To further this cause, many
card companies have raised the traditional monthly principal
minimum payment to 4% thus allowing you the opportunity to keep larger
unpaid balances.  Everywhere you turn, there is another reason to justify more debt, whether large or small.

JUST FOLLOWING THE MASSES

Perhaps
its time to wonder if you have had your nose pressed squarely against
the tail of the other sheep in front of you.  It is certainly true that
if you want the results of the masses, then do what the masses do.  You
know as well as I that most people almost blissfully enter into
increasingly large burdens of debt with seemingly little thought as to
the ultimate consequence.  

Maybe Grandpa was Smarter than we Thought

The
financial thinking of today’s consumptive sheep would have been viewed
with a mix of humor, wonder, and pity by our grandparents.  Just two
short generations ago the value of money and disdain for debt were well
rooted in the core morality of many or most Americans.  The axis of our
money globe has truly shifted since then.  

What was sought
after and worked for in recent years past -thrift, financial security,
and fiscal responsibility- has been supplanted by the new morality of,
“I want mine now!”

Changing Our Priorities

In the past, if you didn’t have the funds, you couldn’t buy the product. Yes, there were opportunities for debt back then, but when you combine the new morality of wanting things now  with the many opportunities for getting into debt, you’ve got a country full of undisciplined spenders, skyrocketing bankruptcy filings and many broken homes resulting from increased financial burdens.

The other day I was evaluating a budgeting software program and in it, it claims you need to save up a month’s worth of expenses. That was the first step to getting that program to work for you. It kind of came as a shock to me because our society is so focused on a paycheck to paycheck mentality. If you doubt it, just look at all those Check Cashing Companies that are springing up everywhere that will give you the cash in advance of your payday.

But the point is that you first get to the point where you have the funds in your account prior to them being due the following month. This is good common sense. How many times are we juggling funds from one account to another or waiting till the last possible day to pay a bill or even paying late fees to make the payments.

We’ve got to first change our priorities by changing the way we think about money. If we could take out a crystal ball and see how our current spending habits will affect us in the future as well as the consequences of the financial burden heaped upon our shoulders, maybe then we will be motivated to change our priorities so that getting out of debt becomes more important than the things on our wish list.

Stay tuned for more info about living debt free.