While in the grocery checkout the other evening, a conversation happened that intrigued me. The lady in front of me was giving her husband a bit of a time because he went to the service counter and bought forty dollars worth of lottery tickets. Candidly, they didn’t look to me like they could afford them.

As they walked out I mentioned to the lady behind me that they looked in debt. I commented that the people who can least afford to buy things usually do.

She went on for four or five minutes about people having choices.

Basically she said the following.

“Why do we perpetually suggest that the poor don’t have choices regarding debt?. It offends me when I hear about these people with too much credit card debt. I’ve been a very low income person for a long time. When I was just out of college, I lived in my car. Mostly because I preferred to eat out and buy new clothes instead of pay my bills.

“I couldn’t afford, because I chose not to afford.

“When my husband and I were married we could afford $80 wedding bands. So that’s what we purchased.

“When our children were small we couldn’t afford more than $50 a week in groceries after buying diapers and formula. We made $20 more than what would qualify us for assistance. Guess what, we didn’t have cable. We didn’t use credit cards. We had a $400 car and kept it running.

“We didn’t blame the government for our problems. We chose to have me stay home with the children, we chose for my husband to work a job that he enjoyed instead of him being miserable chasing the all mighty dollar. We chose to work hard for the education we have.

“We didn’t have a home phone and if we wanted to visit with friends we made plans for our next visit when we were with them and kept our word.

“We are very blessed now to live in a nice home with a very comfortable income that my husband earned from years of hard work and determination. We’re able to take care of our father who wasted alot of his money on lottery tickets. HIS CHOICE.

“Everyone has the opportunity to make the right choice.

“Maybe listening to sound advice would go farther than trying to continually blame the government when a group of citizens make horrible life choices.”

.
Post to del.icio.us   Digg this   Post to Slashdot