On Financial Discipline

In the July issue of the Voyage of Your Life eZine, there is a challenge article about financial discipline, specifically about budgeting. In these days of budget challenges and incessant coverage of debates over debt limits, spending cuts, taxes (income producers) and future impacts, the best thing we as individuals can do is reduce our own debt, manage our spending to be only those things we can afford, and have a budget and stick to it.

Anything else is foolish.

My parents (as far as I know) never had a credit card. They paid for everything with cash or check, and there was money in the bank to cover what they bought. Maybe buying on credit, deficit spending, and a non-balanced budget are the big ticket items that have the U.S. in a crunch. There are no easy solutions, and seems the politicians would rather pass the debt to the next generations than deal with it now.

Maybe my parents should run the country.

Peace!

Identity Theft (and worse)

Someone got my credit card number. At least that's what the credit card company says. Some fraudulent activity occurred with an ATM transaction, so my credit card was cancelled. To answer the question posed by the credit card company, who shall remain nameless, of what's in my wallet -- nothing of any value. Nothing that I can use to purchase Christmas gifts, here in the most depressed economic times in our history.

I can't get a new card for several days (7-10 days if you don't raise a stink). Which makes me wonder about the infrastructure supporting our credit system. Suppose in the midst of the prime shopping season, a bunch of us had our credit card turned off. How are we going to get this economy going again if I can't spend money that I don't yet have? It seems like somebody (merchants or the credit card companies) would want me to have a shiny new card, ready to use immediately. Maybe we should use a few dollars of the billions in the bailout to have a few drivers on standby to bring new cards to people's homes who suffer what I did. Just a thought.

Am I being unreasonable?