Living Above Their Means

Blog Prompt: e e cummings once remarked, “I’m living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.” Do you find that more people today are living beyond their income? Are you?

Yes, I believe too many people buy things on credit or on hopes that they will have money later. They want to have what other people have and think that they need to have it right now. When I was growing up, I was always taught to save my money if I wanted to buy something and when I had enough, then I could get it. I think too many now just buy it on credit if they want it. Then later, they lose their jobs or have a medical emergency and suddenly do not have the money to pay their bills. Young people seem to want the biggest, fanciest house they can get and as long as the banks will give them the loan, they get that house. They don’t think about other expenses they might have and then they can’t pay their loans. This economy is the consequence of all of this “buy now, pay later” attitude. If we buy something on credit, we know we have the money in our savings account to pay the credit card balance off at the end of each month. This way we don’t pay any interest and it helps our credit rating. If we can’t afford to pay the bill, then we just don’t get it. We saved up for almost 10 years before we retired so that we would have money to do what we wanted to do when we did retire. This meant not going on trips that other people went on, and not buying fancy clothes, or not buying new cars etc. but now we are able to pay our bills and live comfortably.

Original image: 'Too Much Credit' http://www.flickr.com/photos/23327787@N08/3274955487 by: Andres Rueda Lopez