Posted on 01/14/2009 5:13:40 AM PST by Invisigoth
When I was six, my dad said he’d give me five dollars if I could eat a flyer made of thick paper, which I did. I crumpled it up into little pieces and did it over the span of about an hour. My dad was rather horrified, but to his credit, the man paid up. He also wisely refrained from making loose bets with me in the future.
I spent the money I earned, along with my weekly allowance, on baseball cards. This was wise, because I had no expenses, and baseball cards are really not a bad investment. One particular 1909 Honus Wagner card is worth over a million bucks. I never found it in one of the packs I bought, but that didn’t stop me from collecting over 3,000 cards in only a few years.
As I got older, a couple bucks in weekly allowance stopped seeming like very much money. I didn’t care for buying a pack of cards as much as I cared about going to see a movie with that girl in my English class, or to play pitch and putt with my buddy. So I made a little bit more money doing things like babysitting, or helping some of my adult friends with outdoor construction projects. Or I let my friend, who actually had a regular job, pay for me when we went to swing our pitching wedges. I was quite the financial genius.
(Excerpt) Read more at northstarwriters.com ...
Too many Americans equate debt with wealth. Doesn’t help that many financial analysts have promoted that fantasy for years.
If you can’t pay cash, maybe you don’t need it.
(some words of wisedom)
My great Grandparents held on to their farm through the depression because they weren’t in debt.
From what I hear, there were farmers and workers in the 20s/30s who were convinced by the Gov and the banks to invest in stocks and such that were doomed to fail.
Yep. I have seen MANY adults equate success with how many toys they have, regardless of how much they owed on them.
I'm seriously taking action to get that way myself quickly because I fear that the trillion(s) dollar Obama bailout will cause our current deflationary recession/depression to violently swing the other way and create a hyper-inflationary depression.
Anyone in debt when/if hyper-inflation hits will likely lose everything as their loan rates are adjusted to keep up with the hyper i rate. I just wish I could come up with a way to save my 401K from becoming worthless if hyper-i happens. As long as I work for the Company, I can't withdraw it except for a loan that maxs at 50K, and that has to be paid back.
Paying off the house may have left us broke but it’s better to be a safely broke owner than a broke buyer.
401 k self directed? You could move it to gold.
Yup. My house and land is in the clear. It may not be as fancy as a lot of folks, but I truly dread it for those with mortgages if hyper-inflation happens.
Our employee options to move the money between funds seem to be limited. I’m not sure a gold fund is an available option, but I’m looking into it.
Only if you have an ARM. Those with a fixed rate mortgage and a job where their paycheck is adjusted to (attempt) to keep pace with inflation will be better off in an inflationary period; they'll pay off their mortgage with "cheaper" money.
Except from what I've read over the years, any institution that issued those fixed rate loans, will find a way around it legally or politically and end up sticking it to the mortgagee anyway. And I don't know what kind of jobs are offered where paychecks would be inflation adjusted to keep up with hyper-inflation. I know of annual cost of living increases to salaries and wages but in a year of hyper-inflation, the employee would be sunk before the year ended.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.