Credit Cards ...Continued

1. The Time Problem.

Why is that we need something now? Why can't we wait? Most of the items we charge are the ones we could wait on and they are not something you could not do without. The couch or other furniture item you are charging, why can't we get it later on with our own money?

2. The Peer Pressure Problem

Is it because we are trying to make a nice looking home. For who? Your friends and relatives or yourself. Will you be embarrassed if they came to your house, found you do not have a decent living room?

Are they going to hurtyou if your living room

is not up to their mark? Are we living for them or us? Are they going to be judging you if you are 'poor' and cannot afford things? Why is 'embarrassment' scaring you. They cannot physically harm you if you are unable to afford nice furniture! Your food will still be digested by your stomach even if they think you are poor and not worthy of their company! In fact the food will go down just great if not better. Are you going to charge $20,000.00 worth of furniuture just to look good? Let me look at it a little deeper. So if my friends that came to see me and saw that I do not have a good furniture system, what will happen? Of course, they will think that I am poor and can't afford much. But that is just their feeling and I will just let hem think and feel whatever. Certainly they are not going to hit me on the head for not having furniture or are they? So I will just let them think whatever and if they are embarrassed at my furniture or my my discomfiture ( What is discomfiture, anyway?) they do not have to come see me anyway. And do you think that is really going to bother me. Far from it! So you see no matter what they think or feel they can't get physical. So why do I need to charge anything that I do not need for myself but for the sake of others and to look decent or presentable? This is commonly know as 'peer preseure". I will close this argumernt by saying that this pressure is is the most ridiculous thing ever to let into on your system. By the way when you are in some discomfiture, it is all in your head, nothing has happened in the physical fact. When you do not have something or cannot do something, it is not the end of the world. The sun will still come out the next day after the day of your 'embarrassment', the day you did not buy your furniture and did without it. It is just something you do not have or cannot do. No body is going to get physical with you. There is no need to blush or move a single muscle in your face. There is nothing to 'embarrass' or 'hurt' you. It is all within you and you can easily counter it. You can do without anything and not be the worse for it. Do not charge. You do not have it. If you had it, you would not be charging, you would be buying!

  

3. The Car Problem.

Why do I need a BMW? Are the people going to think more of me or are they going to be impressed by that. I have news for you. A BMW or nothing is going to impress me. I do not need it. In fact, when you do buy one and take payments on that tells me more about you than your BMW. It tells me something is shallow out there since it is trying to show something that they really do not have. And it is the strength of your character that is of value not your BMW. These are just flashy things and they will pass like anything else. But the bill each month will make you feel small. Ironically, when you step into your car it will make you feel like big and important (another example of the Monster soothing/goading you and getting you to do what it wants done: your misery and lessening in all ways). I never buy a new car and never take on payments and just like you I get from point A to point B and I see no payment due bill but a lot of emails begging and offering me all kinds of deals. I put them all in the trash. I would not drive a BMW if I got it for free! I would sell it to the next victim of the monster! I have the title to all of my cars (just 2). It is really idle and childish to get a $500.00 payment on and charging even more to put gas in it!

4. The Electronics problem

This by far is the biggest problem. This industry is changing so fast and rapidly that each item you buy is obsolete within a month, if not already. This is all being done to deny the competitor the competitive advantage. But you are encouraging it and are the victim of it also. The net result? Everyhousehold has old printers and TV's, VCR's, DVR's and a whole lot of other stuff that will evetually go to the trash can or be given away. The best thing to do is to buy at a slower rate than the engineering capacity of the sellers. Example: it is not necessay to have the latest and greatest phone. You just need something to use for communication. You dont have to be paying your bills from the sea shores of Mexico when you are on vacation and through your mobile network. They are just goading you into something that can be done easily through the comfort of your house or office. Apply this principle and you will not need to charge nothing or just about nothing. You do not need to 'Follow" anybody on Facebook or whatever and hence do not need the gadgetry for that. You will still breathe if you do not "follow" anybody. I do not need to know when the queen of England ate her lunch and what got stuck in her throat, if at all. That does not tell me anything.

5. The Lunch and the Food problem.

Why are you eating lunch everyday at the neighbourhoosd bar or fancy restaurant. The food is
greasy and in such quantity, that you should not be eating that kind of stuff anyway. Such a large lunch will make you lethargic the rest of the afternoon and then you will be kicking bake the 5-hour energy to muster up the enegty for the afternoon! What do you buy when you go to the grocery store? A minuter ago you had no idea what you needed at home but the minute you get to the grocery store, all of a sudden you see that you need other things and your mind (or rather the Monster) supplies the details and you say " Yeah , we need that too. It won't hurt to have that too" ,... and many other variations thereof. Personally I would rather have that money in the bank than the cuboard full of food that we will not get to until who knows when. My wife buys so much grocery at a time that we have no place to store it. It is safe to say that if our city had a famine, we could survive easily for one whole year without needing to buy food! And that is not all. Why are we eating those expensive dinners out? Is there something wrtong with the food at home. Oh, I see you say you need the 'excitement of going out' and the 'atmosphere'. But do you like the 'excitement of credit card bills' and the 'atmosphere of the bills' coming to your home too? I bet you do not. Do you like the phone calls when they call for their money? You can create the atmosphere at home and can have creative things to do at home. There are many ways. Check your city council offices for the activites in your area. That is not my area of expertise. But I know there are almost countlessly many programs in each city and area.

But the worst part is the Friday and Saturday night going out and the drinking. That is just pure waste of money. You do not need to drink to feel good or to enjoy anyhting. In fact these are crutches that people have invented and have become socialized and accepted. To feel good you do not need these or any other. But in this age the pressure is enormous and most people are not going to to abe able to control it. But for me the peer pressure is zero. I never drink and although I have been to all kinds of parties and celebrations and exposed to all kinds of 'peer pressures', I have no taste for this stuff. But I understand this is very controversial and I am not setting any standards or anyhting for anybody or judging anyhting. That is for you to decide (actually it is decided for you! See, supra). But it is an enormous expense and specially smoking if you are doing that too. I alresady talked about the force of the monster within us, see supra. I am not saying much more than that. But it is a major problem. You decide.

6. The Vacation/Travel Problem

This is another popular avenue for spending money and charging on a card. I do not understand how one can enjoy the vacation if you charged it unless you have some quick plan to pay for it. This is an item you can easily do without. You can rest and relax right where you are and not see a large bill that will make you miserable and despondent and this will be lingering for a long time while you pay for it but the joy of travel will be gone pretty quickly. Which would you rather have? I can just go to the county park and have a nice walk around the lake and come back really rested. In fact I can actually feel my blood pressure dropping! No worry and no nothing, just rest and relaxation.

Basically there are many ways to relax right in your own city and town and that costs you nothing and it is a very secure feeling to have a positive balance at the bank to spend as you wish.

There are are many other areas where we spend our money but these are the most common ones and you will do well to watch and get ahead and get some real enjoyment out of your own money.

Now I would like to examine the case of Robinson Crusoe. See if you can figure out what I am trying to say and why I am presenting this analysis. I am not explaining!

The Roninson Crusoe Problem

Let us assume he could only find X number of fish everyday to live on. But you see he needs a hut to sleep in. So if he wants to make a hut he will not be fishing in that time and hence not eating. So he will have to fish a few extra (modern time 'work extra hours some where') or eat less (modern time 'saving') to find the time to make the hut. He will probably save Y number of fish and store them in the sand before he can start work on the hut. Let us say his hut is done in 7 days and he had enough food for that period. Now he has the hut (like the furniture you charged!) but he did not charge it. He paid for it. How do you think? Of course, he did not have to go for the hut. He could just sleep on the sand each night and set up a fire around there to sleep with. There are people in India and elsewher (the monks) that do not care what or where they live and hence never charge anything. Such people have great character and you and I are not like that. We do need some comfort. Then we better learn to earn it before we enjoy it or learn to do without it like the monks in the Himalayas. Right here I have just given you the solution to the modern human problem in one paragraph and not a volume. You can read all the books you want but there is not going to be any more than that, that you are going to come back with, and I mean all the books past and presrnt and future.

I hope I shed some light on the credit card problems in our economy and I hope this helps somebody. Personally I would like to see the credit cards go away altogether and become obsolete. That will happen if you stop using your credit cards altogether.

Just save enough and put it in the bank and use a debit card. This way you are borrowing from yourself and there is no safer way than that. I use my debit cards all the time and it is very satisfying when I see no revolving credit card charges or bills and no fees of anykind! You can start working on it today. I hope you do. Just see what Robinson Crusoe had to do. I will add to this article as and when I see more things.

RH