FSS Newsletter :: July 2003
Money Matters :: Why Is It So Critical To Avoid Debt?
But why is debt so negatively powerful? When it comes to
your family's financial health, what is it about debt that
makes it such a debilitating disease?
Debt promotes discontentment.
When everything you could ever want is only as far away as
the painless swipe of a credit card, and when this fact is
advertised in front of your face every 13 minutes on prime-time
television, how could you possibly be happy with what you
already have? Advertisers, retailers, and economic strategists
alike go to tremendous lengths to embed the spend-and-consume
lifestyle in our national mindset. Wherever you find large
amounts of viewing eyes (prime-time television, slick magazine
inserts), you'll find the well-organized encouragement of
further debt, with prompt after shiny prompt activated by
that man behind the curtain.
- That noise you hear? It's his cash register, and it's
ringing
- All because what we have is never enough.
- Debt makes arrogant presumptions about the future.
You'll definitely be making more money next year than you
did this year, right? And there's absolutely no way that you
or your spouse could fall victim to a round of layoffs, right?
And the odds of you or your spouse becoming temporarily disabled,
seriously ill, or otherwise unable to work for more than a
few days ... those odds are practically zero, right?
By taking the pay-for-it-later approach, you are committing
an unspecified portion ("unspecified" because the
longer you hold the debt outstanding, the larger that debt
will grow to be) of your future income for today's needs or
wants ... when in fact you have no idea what your future monetary
means will be, or whether they will even meet your future
monetary needs on a debt-repayment-excluded basis.
So if you're carrying debt, you'd better hope your Magic
8-Ball has a real good grasp on the future.
Debt requires you to transfer your future wealth to your
creditors.
"Here," you're saying to the fine folks at Visa.
"Take the money I think I'll have next [insert future
date here]. I probably won't need it for anything important
anyway." Like retirement. Or a nicer home. Or someone's
college education.
Aww, what the heck. Financial security is probably overrated
anyhow.
Debt limits your options — and heavy loads of debt
eliminate your options altogether.
Taking a week's vacation might be just the thing you and
your family need, but when you're up to your neck in credit-card
or other loan payments, getting away for a while is going
to be tough to pull off. Hate your job? Ready to bail and
search for something else? The debtor's reality is that such
a career move may be in the best interest of his tomorrow,
but impossible due to the financial constraints imposed by
his debts today.
Debt steals your freedom and makes you a slave.
This is it, summed up in a coin purse: The borrower is servant
to the lender. The debtor earns her wages for the benefit
of the financier.
Debt is its own self-fulfilling prophecy — a harbinger
of itself.
So you have more debt than you can pay off now. That fact
makes you more likely to have even more of it down the road.
After all, if you can't pay cash for your purchases now, and
you're using credit to carry the difference, then you're pledging
some portion of your future income for that debt. Doing so
means you'll be pretty likely to keep coming up short of funds
in the future, which means you'll keep taking on debt then,
too. And so, barring efforts to the contrary, the debt cycle
will remain unbroken.
Debt is a discourager — a drain on your mental resources.
As if the world didn't put enough problems on your plate,
now you have debt to worry about. But debt isn't a loner.
Wherever it goes, it brings along a few pals: Stress, anger,
anxiety, discouragement, conflict. None of these emotions
are conducive to living an enjoyable, productive existence.
Nor do they aid your problem-solving skills.
Debt doesn't just cost money. It also costs life.
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