Debt is NOT a way of life.
Today I had an interesting discussion with one of my relatives. I won’t mention their name but suffice to say it’s one of my older relatives. The topic of discussion was debt. During the course of our conversation I stated that I wanted to become more aggressive in getting out of debt. I wanted to buckle down even more and make some additional sacrifices so that we could be debt free sooner.
His response to me was “Why do you want to make sacrifices to get out of debt when debt is a normal part of life”. Well, that almost caused me to get on my soapbox and start pontificating, but I held back.
It is this mindset that is causing millions of people to continue to live with debt. They believe that having a car payment, or a credit card payment is just a normal part of life.
It is a normal part of life if you want to be like everybody else, living paycheck to paycheck and broke as heck.
He also said “What good is getting out of debt and making sacrifices to do so if you die the day after your are debt free”. I replied ” What about if I don’t die, then I will be alive and debt free.” I said. Here again is this mindset that we shouldn’t even attempt to be debt-free because the work needed to achieve such a goal may be wasted if we die.
I think it’s nuts that people view debt this way. Debt is not and should not be something “normal”. We need to change the way we view debt if we are ever going to be debt free and achieve financial peace.
Regards
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And excellant post, you should submit it to the Carnival of Debt Reduction
I can’t even fathom that mindset.
I can fathom it, just maybe these people live a life full of contentment and peace, despite not being rich or even financially well off, I don`t think there is anything wrong or right with it.
If your not happy with your life in any way you change it if and when you can, if you are happy, you have a great family heaps of friends and a great or even just a good job.
Although I can’t say having that mindset is neither right or wrong, I can say it’s something I’d like to shy away from. It is difficult in today’s society where you it is essential to go into debt because you need a car to get to work and have to make those payments or because you have an unexpected medical bill and need to use that credit card with an outrageous interest rate.
In any case, I prefer the “pay it in full” mentality. I’d rather walk to work or carpool, as I do now, so that I can pay for a decent vehicle in full. Not having to worry about an additional “bill” each month helps reduce the stress too.