DEBT: Lessons to live by

I very much appreciated your editorial Wednesday talking about our corporate debt. How much we actually owe on student loans and credit card debt.

In years gone by folk graduated from school, took a job, and worked to earn enough to make a down payment on a small home. Later, they were able to buy a better home. Finally, after working many years they were able to buy their dream home with nice furniture.

Today, young people graduate from college and expect to immediately be able to live in the same kind of conditions their parents achieved after working 20 or more years; no working up to it little by little. So, they charge a great deal on a credit card and are not able to pay it off at the end of the month. Each month the amount they need to pay on the card increases until they come to the point where they simply cannot make the payment.

Look around you. Husband and wife both work to afford to live in a nice home. Is it really worth it? What is that doing for your children whom you say you love so much, yet find that someone else has the control of teaching them how to live?

I have seen weeklong seminars on financial planning. Yet financial planning is actually very simple: If you do not have the money, you do not spend it. You pay off all your credit cards at the end of the month, and you move into a house that you actually can afford.

Maybe we expect the government to bail us out. Still, our debts are our responsibility and we need to plan for the future by living small and consuming few natural resources. (Maybe this is what they mean by living green.)

Ask your parents how they got ahead. It may surprise you the sacrifices they made to be able to enjoy what they now have. For most of them their home was paid for by the time they retired. Life is really simple when we have no debt: If we do not have it, we do not spend it. Comments: [email protected]

JIM HOLLINGSWORTH

Coeur d’Alene