I have seen the world around me become more and more riddled in debt and I would imagine that the life around you is probably the same. People seem to be practically encouraged and even rewarded for buying things that they cannot afford and we always hear these statistics about the average American being $20,000 in credit card debt... which is a statistic I completely made up but you know what I mean.
Now for rednecks or at least the caliber of redneck that I consider to be my peers, this is actually something that we may actually do better than the metropolitan counterparts because I don't really know anyone who I consider to be a country boy or redneck that is up to their necks in debt. It just isn't the way we roll.
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I was reading an article the other day that I encountered by random entitled "10 reasons why you will never get out of debt" and while the article was depressing, it was filled with points that I think that if people would just stop doing these things, that getting out of debt would be extremely easy. Well, that is provided you didn't rack up an insurmountable amount of it to begin with.
I went to college with people from all walks of life and most of them were not what I would consider rednecks. They are good people but they just came from different backgrounds than I did. They WANT city life and seem to think that is the way that it should be. There is nothing wrong with that, it just isn't the life I wanted for me.
Many of these people I know are terrified of losing their jobs because they are financed to the hilt on almost everything that they have in their lives. Since we graduated all those years ago they have continually upgraded their houses despite the fact that there was nothing wrong with the one that they lived in before. In a particularly crazy (IMO) situation, an old college roommate of mine has a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom house and he has 4 cars. There are only 3 people in his family. His mortgage is outrageous and it is rightly placed at almost exactly what his salary dictates he would possibly be able to pay between he and his wife's income. If either of them were to lose their job they would be absolutely screwed. I don't know the terms of their mortgage, but hopefully they have some sort of ability to renegotiate because without both of their salaries, they simply cannot afford the house that they live in.
The fact that they have 4 cars despite their only being 2 drivers in their family is completely crazy to me. One of their cars is a midlife crisis looking sportscar that they almost never drive anywhere because it is completely impractical. Another one of their cars is a jacked up Jeep, which is something a redneck like me can appreciate but honestly, I've known this guy for 30 years and I don't think I have ever seen him go off-road.
When I visit them they also have all the latest gadgets and they always have the latest smartphones. They have a TV that covers nearly an entire wall of their living room and their sofa could comfortably seat an entire WNBA team.
This level of superfluous spending is something that I think most rednecks completely avoid. Generally speaking, and even though we don't have a great deal of inside knowledge about the subject, we tend to not trust financial institutions. We also have a general distrust of both the government and corporations, so we do as many transactions using cash as possible. I have credit cards, but there are only very specific things I will use them for and this is just because I am getting points towards something I frequently purchase such as construction goods at Lowe's or Home Depot. I also pay off the balance every single month because I'll be damned if someone is going to get 23.9% of my money annually just because I can't handle my spending.
Rednecks also tend to live in quite modest housing. I don't know a single redneck that has a house that is excessively large and most of them are instead focused on the amount of land that they can get. Land is very important to a redneck. We also tend to DIY stuff on our own houses and will only hire a contractor if it is absolutely necessary. I say this with a tinge of irony because I am a contractor and I encourage my friends to not hire me.
For a redneck living within one's financial means is actually pretty easy since we aren't pre-occupied with things like the latest fashion, nor do most of us give half a damn about the fact that Apple releases a latest and greatest smartphone every year for $2000. To be honest with you, I don't think any of the good ol' boys that I know have anything other than what would be considered middle of the road Android phones.
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To us, the idea of spending all the money you make in a month is something we just don't do unless something crazy happens. The idea of spending MORE than we make in a month and racking up credit card debt is something that our group avoids like the plague.
Rednecks are unfairly regarded as being stupid but there are some things that I believe we just culturally do a lot more sensibly than others. We tend to live within our means and to me anyway, that just seems like common sense.