Should Americans Allow Debt To Control Their Lives?
We hear every day that Americans live beyond their means as a matter of course, needing to drive or wear the newest and best just because. And it’s true that about 44% of Americans live with at least some “bad” debt such as credit card debt. While certain kinds of debt, such as student loan payments or mortgages, are actually “good” debt because they give you something for your money that’s truly going to benefit you (such as an education or building up equity in your home), much of the debt that gives Americans trouble today is credit card debt or other “bad” debt for which they’ll get nothing in return - and will likely pay whopping interest rates and charges on besides.
Many Americans can only afford to live from one paycheck to the next paycheck because they are living well beyond their financial means and because of this trend many don’t attend to save for retirement or that rainy day. It should not surprise because of the way the American culture has encouraged more of this kind of behavior. Say it ain’t so?
Because in America, economic growth is seen as key to a healthy economy. And what is economic growth? You guessed it. Yes, it means more and better jobs, more people working, and making more money, but it also means more people buying more things. In fact, a large part of economic growth is based on how much we spend every year. And guess what? This number (how much we spend every year) is not split up between how much of that is debt and how much of that is actually money of our own that we earned. It simply says we spent X amount of dollars to shop. That’s right. It means that a large part of that number could actually be you going into debt to buy those goods, but it actually looks like “growth.” In fact, this is a fake measure of how healthy our economy is, because your own personal economy is certainly not healthy if you’re in debt to get things you don’t need and that will not give you a positive return in the long run, such as an education would.
So how can we expect Americans to know how to manage their own budgets wisely (and not go into debt) until our economy knows to manage its own debt AND truly reflect the numbers that show the economy’s health or sickness with real money instead of debt erroneously reflected as “dollars”?
Now, that’s a little facetious to ask, because of course Americans can learn how to manage their own budgets even without the government providing a good role model. But it does beg the question that the government, too, needs to go on a budget “diet”. In fact, our own national debt is in excess of $12 trillion.
If you need to know how you can completely cut back on your spending; it isn’t that hard but can be interesting in the ways that can be cut back? Do you think you can do it properly without having any questionable spending habits. One way that can definitely help is to stop the spending is to drop the Seattles Best for some good old fashioned home brewed coffee, putting a stop to the buying of new clothes until you actually wear those items that have the tags on them and quite possibly the most under utilized thoughts of actually driving that car you just had to have and drive it a few more years instead of swapping it out for a new set of wheels because you don’t have to worry about it. If you are living well and don’t need to worry about these types of things then disregard the previous statements but unfortunately most Americans do have to worry about having to cut back on the spending habits. You should figure out what your basic needs are that get you by financially from month to month and cut them back until you have the real debts paid off such as credit card debts and all the other frivolous debts paid off.
You never know? We as a society could quite possibly be role models to the government in regard to the spending habits and balancing debt.