If You Can't Afford it, You can't AFFORD it!

When I was a kid, one of the consistent lessons my dad always tried to drive into my head was that if you didn't have the money for something, you couldn't have it.

End of story.

"But I want a new ____, can't you just buy it and keep my allowance for the next four weeks?"

Purple flower image run through the "Deep Dream Generator." All the faces are cool...
Nope.

To their credit, my parents didn't even have a mortgage on their house. They more or less "hand built" it, themselves, over a 10-year period, finishing different parts as they could afford to. All their cars were bought with cash — if you didn't have the money for a new car, then you didn't have a new car.

Not How Today's World Works!

Today, we depend on credit and debt.

In some parts of the world you're almost unpatriotic if you're not consuming things and spending money you don't actually have. It's almost as if we have grown addicted to instant gratification to such an extent that the thought of simply doing without something till you have the money in hand is more horrific than our worst nightmares.

Meanwhile, a veritable army of snake-oil salesmen show us ways to "have" that new car without payment for long enough that you end up so thoroughly in debt you won't be back out till the next millennium.

In fact, I'm only half joking when I expect to see "till death" financing on certain items... "buy now, and no repayment till we take it out of your estate when you die!"

I dunno about you, but there's just something morally and ethically wrong with that whole ball of wax.

Maybe it's the fact that the entire idea of "not being able to afford" something seems to have been swept under a rug somewhere, because "not-doing" and "not-having" is somehow counter to.... WHAT, exactly?

Northwest beach near our house...

Instruments of Misery and Demise?

I can't help but think about our daughter (27) and son (almost 30) who are both crippled by student load debt.

They incurred tens of thousands of dollars of debt in order to do what you're allegedly "supposed to do," to get ahead in life... which is to get a "better education" so you would ostensibly be able to get a "better job."

All these years later, neither of them have "better" jobs, and both work in fields that are largely unrelated to their degrees... because those were the only places they could actually find work. Meanwhile, both live in pretty second-rate apartments with the knowledge that they can't even start to save up for a down payment on a house till they've paid off their student loans. And they are among the ones who are not scamming the system.

When I see their situations, I feel mildly grateful that my own credit is so shitty I couldn't borrow 99 cents for a Big Mac. Of course, my credit got to be that way because I had to — you guess it — borrow money. In this case, borrow money to pay medical bills at a time when we simply didn't make enough to be able to both afford to live and to have a medical procedure done.

It's a sad situation to be faced with: "You can either borrow the money and pay, or you can be DEAD... or at least permanently disabled."

Fiery winter sunset...

Towards NO Debt!

For some years, we have been moving towards a place of having no debt... in a sense, it feels like an aspiration to step outside the system. A chance to not be beholden so some third party.

It's an interesting journey, because you really discover just how much the world is set up to NOT favor those who'd rather pay for something... rather than borrow to pay for that thing.

I sometimes start wondering if organizations like insurance companies will start creating three year (or longer) policies as standard, purely to make it that much more difficult to choose the cash option (requiring pre-payment in full) as opposed to the financing option. I hope not...

There are still a lot of things we really can't afford... but we are increasingly taking a long hard look at whether we need them at all if we don't happen to have the cash to pay for them in full, on the spot.

Thanks for reading!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! How do YOU feel about debt? Do you avoid it? Or do you depend on it? How do you manage it? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190401 00:42 PST
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