During an early morning drive to Orlando for a speaking
engagement, while listening to some mindless radio chatter, an advertisement
blasted out from a young man, with poor credit, was able to get a car loan from
a local credit union, using his car as collateral to pay off some accumulated
bills and put some cash in his pocket. My thoughts were; if you have poor
credit, why would you borrow more money to extend yourself into debt and put additional
borrowed spending cash into your pocket? As the radio signal faded, I changed
stations and another commercial blared out the ability to pay-off those holiday
credit cards with a home equity line of credit and have additional cash for the
Spring get-away vacation. I had to ponder on that one for a moment; let’s see,
you spend money you don’t have to make other people happy during the holidays,
just to make yourself happy, only to get upset with yourself for creating a
financial burden which now you will borrow more money to pay off the debt and
then take a vacation you can’t afford using the equity in your home, as an ATM.
I asked myself this question; how does that make any sense with anyone? The
truth of the matter, that is exactly how a large portion of our society lives
today. They use what equity they have built in their home and car to pay off
credit cards to lower their interest rate on the borrowed money only to once
again make purchases with their credit cards with high interest rates and make
minimum payments until the card limits out and the cycle returns for a
re-finance of their home mortgage or trade-in their used car for extended
financing. Debt is the real killer of our economy, households and
relationships. Debt leads to stress, which leads to anxiety, overeating and
drinking, which leads to additional health problems. Debt is the real killer in
our community. Money management needs to be part of the “Public Service”
advertisements on radio and television. Money management needs to be taught
starting in elementary school and advanced in middle and high school. Our
college graduates are drowning in debt, our nation’s families credit card debt
is over one and half trillion dollars and the banks and lending institutions
are not helping, they’re enabling. Before you decide to extend your credit card
spending limit, re-finance your car or get a home equity line of credit, sit
down and create a real savings and spending budget. If you find yourself digging
yourself deeper into debt, stop digging! Find an organization who will assist
you with your debt, talk with your lenders and stop going down the path of
financial ruin. Think about the future and the cash you will need in case of an
emergency or your retirement that is quickly catching up with you. Don’t let
debt be the killer of you!
