This past week, I was in a conversation with a coworker about cars. You see, ever since I decided to be done with debt and my wife and I decided to have our third child, we’ve only owned one car—a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan SE. It’s old, but it has low mileage for the age and it’s served us well. Until I started to drive back and forth to work for my new job.
I saw this handy graphic the other day and just had to share. You can click on the image on the right to see the original, full sized image.
The green represents income and the red represents debt. Pardon the language in the 29 year old comment, but it’s very real. The more income we have, the more debt we accrue because of the increased spending power.
The thing is, after we get into so much debt we find that we’re in a prison to debt—giving most of our earnings that are supposed to be working for us to someone else.
This nightmare has to end.
How much do you have saved up? Me, I’m better than about 3 months—especially because we’ve seriously cut back on discretionary spending with my job loss.
As a result of the economy, all subjects related to money or personal finance are currently the hot topic of discussion. There are websites, blogs, books and other areas devoted to covering the latest news in the world of personal finance.
In fact when it comes to personal finance, there are few areas that are truly “personal” anymore. Lenders, employers, landlords and many others can review your credit report to determine your overall “worthiness” and how you handle your money can have a lasting effect on those around you as well.
For this reason it is important to consider how your financial decisions will impact not only your life but also the lives of those closest to you.
One of the first steps in getting a hold of your finances is finding where all of your money is going. The only way you’re going to do this is through work.
One of the things that I’m most thankful for at this point in time is that my family is no longer in debt—except our mortgage. This being the second time that I have been laid off in 7 months, my expenses are much lower because I took the time a few years ago to get out of debt.
Many people have decided that it just isn’t worth it—credit, that is. One of the neat things that this recession has done is to convince people that although credit is handy and easy, there’s nothing that beat cash and savings.
So, are these the only two options? Do I need to cut up all my cards or is there still a way to get the ease of credit while only spending my own money?
