Forty-five years ago, it was cool to smoke cigarettes. Children, myself included, would feel cool about smoking. There was a product called candy cigarettes at the grocery stores. I haven’t seen this product for » Read more…

A key principle to be aware of about dealing with debt is the idea of not creating anymore debt in the moment or during your day. This is hard for folks to grasp at first because we have ourselves believing there is an unlimited supply of money. We tend to think since we have consumer credit accounts readily available, we have money to spend.

I found that when I started saying no to spending like that, I got a lot of joy in conscious non-accumulation. Let me explain.

For many years when the opportunity arose to simply get the little things that my thoughts told me would make me happy, I bought them whether I had the money or not. I wasn’t listening when others told me to save for these purchases rather than spend, spend, spend.

I’d had to save money as a youngster for these purchases, but I was now and adult. Adults are allowed to spend money they don’t have … right? That was the perception. It wasn’t the reality.

There were a couple of old-timers that really got me to think about the concept of saving money for my purchases instead of getting the stuff using consumer credit. I started to watch and become aware of what I was doing, so one day I decided to give this a try.

As I remember, the first item I decided to save for instead of charging was a television set. Each week I’d hold back eleven dollars, placing the money in my sock drawer in the bedroom.

As the money got to about forty-four dollars I could feel different things going on inside of me. I hadn’t held back even that much money in over a decade.

By the time the money built to seventy-seven dollars I really was feeling good about holding back this amount of money. I discovered it wasn’t really that hard to do. At this point I was about half-way there. I realized I was going to buy this television and own it free and clear when I brought it home. Hadn’t done that in a long time.

As this was going on, thoughts of the interest payments we were making on so many things over the years and how this was actually working against us kept coming into my mind. When the day arrived to buy the television, we never did. It had taken over three months to hold back that money. I’d sacrificed a few little things to be able to have that money in my possession.

Somehow the new television didn’t seem worth turning loose the dollars in exchange for it. The new set wasn’t that much better than the one we already had.

That’s when another idea came to me. It appears that if we save for our purchases rather than using consumer credit, we’ll save between eighteen and one-hundred percent.

Had we charged the television for a year, we’d have paid eighteen percent interest on that purchase in we’d financed it for a year. That would’ve been an eighteen percent savings, by not paying the interest fee to the creditor.

We actually ended up saving one-hundred percent because the purchase we were saving for simply didn’t seem that great an exchange for the cash money anymore.

We each have the power to change our thinking about how consumer credit works against us. This concept means something and is important for you to realize. It’ll help you deal with your debt issue. Billions and billions have done this before you and you can too.

Twenty-five years ago, the big credit card chains started making it easy to spend money you didn’t have. They showed up on college campuses all across the country. They gave you a prize by simply filling out their application. Approved or not, you still got the prize.

You got a little short of cash. You knew » Read more…

So many consumers are taking on additional debt to ease existing credit issues. Their goal is to consolidate numerous higher-interest debts into one, easier-to-handle less expensive plan. There are debt-consolidation loans, balance transfers to a zero-percent credit card and home equity loans and home equity lines of credit.

A Quick Tip:
About These Consolidation Loans

Folks who take out a home equity loan or other type of loan to pay off credit cards end up repeating the process with the same (if not higher) debt load within » Read more…

Can a higher awareness of how we spend our time be an advantage to us regarding getting out of debt? If we found some time, could this help our cause?

Did you ever log how much time you spend in front of a television set? Are you aware of how long your children sit in front of the television? If you become aware, you’ll discover » Read more…

Massive debt has been fueling our spending for the past six months, and our savings rate as a nation is still in negative territory.We know that consumer spending is presently the backbone of the American economy. And our have-it-now society is geared to encourage us to spend.

Sustaining the spending is the use of creating more consumer debt in the form of credit cards and borrowing the equities out of our homes. Visa recently announced that holiday shoppers charged eighteen percent more money on its credit cards during the three months » Read more…

Thirty-five years ago, the largest hamburger chain on earth started meals for kids. They added playgrounds to their restaurants. They made it fun for kids to come to eat.

Very early, kids learned to want to come back and eat at their restaurants. They may have trained you, too.

Recently, there are people that feel we should now blame » Read more…

Young people seem to be confusing assets and debt. Some are implementing potentially dangerous thoughts regarding credit as it relates to creating debt. While at a car wash the other day, a young man and I struck up a conversation about credit.

He was wondering if I knew » Read more…

The cash advance business is growing at enormous rates. You’ve seen these places popping up in all types of neighborhoods. These are relatively clean, well lit, innocent looking establishments. The new, improved breed of quick-cash ‘til payday operations look great on the outside. The personnel working in them are dressed professionally. But the usury style of business is the same as it’s always been.

Typically, they are offering very short-term loans to people, already in debt, who find themselves in a bind. Since they require no credit check, it can be a convenient way for » Read more…

Certain laws exist which we can accept or reject. When we choose to accept these laws, the knowledge and use of the law works to our benefit. When we aren’t aware or ignore the existence of the laws, it’s like fighting the current of a river in a boat.

Take Isaac Newton and his observance of gravity. Here is old Newton sitting under a tree. An apple falls onto his head. He observes gravity. He thinks and ponders this phenomenon, writes about » Read more…