Posted on 07/31/2015 11:02:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Of course it is. Thats how our country is set up. Its how the schools teach us.
Without debt you cant build credit. Without credit you’re screwed in a lot of ways.
And why did this happen? And why does it continue to happen?
Essentially this is a treatise left for future lifeforms to better understand why we failed as a species.
I often feel like the only member of my family that actually wants to get out of debt. Saving is a crazy thought.
My sister lives paycheck to paycheck. But she has a $500 car payment. As she put it “You have to have a car payment”. Every time she goes to the stealership to get her free oil change, she drives out with a newer car.
I don’t have a car payment but that is irrelevant to her.
I can see having a 30 year mortgage and working to pay it off sooner.
Woah, not me..
“Have you noticed that most doctors and most hospitals will never tell you how much something is going to cost in advance?”
Yeah, I noticed that when I had an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and no insurance. $100K one time, $300K the next time I asked. Finally got insurance and took care of it (when it was 6.5 cm!!!) The actual (highly qualified) surgeon was cheap, considering. Saw a lot of high charges by the anesthesiologists that got slapped down. Never did figure out what it cost the insurance company. Too much confusion.
Some debt is good, other debt is bad.
If you are a middle class person you can’t save enough quickly enough to buy a home without a mortgage in most markets. And you’re paying rent to someone else. With the tax allowances it makes financing a home good thing for most people.
On the other hand, putting your beer and pizza on plastic (Unless it’s paid off each month without interest accruing and provides you with frequent flier miles) is generally NOT good debt.
“Stealership.” LOL!!
The bread-and-butter of the credit card industry is that there is a solid segment of society that is “comfortable” with a certain amount of debt at 24% APR. If you were to give them the money to pay their cards off, they would just spend it.
The lending industry has been able to bake their products into the system of daily life. It's hard to buy an airline ticket with a CC. It is almost impossible to rent a car without one. The rental place I use flat out won't take a debit card or cash.
Thank you Federal Reserve!
Foundation of the progressive nanny-state.
Makes me feel good - zero debt as we went into retirement. Use credit card as a convenience and write a check for the whole amount each month. Of course, my wife and I are the “paranoid” types who worried about retiring and actually being able to live w/o a menu of Alpo so we denied ourselves some luxuries and saved while working - strange concept among so many who are stressed because they just can’t make it on their income because of all the “nice stuff the absolutely need”.....
Woah, not me..
The payment on $300k at 4% is only $1,432.20 a month. That's less than renting in a lot of markets. And the interest portion (most of it, in the early years) is deductible from your income for tax purposes.
If you can afford to own outright, by all means do so. But remember, rent is gone forever; mortgage payments build equity.
Does your sister have no sales resistance? Not to be unkind. But is she an easy target for a slick car salesman, if she goes for an oil change and ends up with a new car instead???
Most of us will spend our entire lives paying off debt.
That is why we are called debt slaves – our hard work makes others extremely wealthy
_______________________________
If greedy lenders are taking the place of “personal responsibility”, then perhaps they deserve to get rich.
She’s dumb as a bag of hair. If the mechanic tells her it needs X, she just buys another car. She has the typical mentality of average Americans: How much is the payment? That’s how she ended up with a $300 a month cell phone payment. If she is out of work for a month, they are going to start taking stuff. When our mother died, she got $15k. She bought a travel trailer. Then she bought a car that can’t pull it.
Her boyfriend is just as dumb.
We don’t owe on a thing except our one monthly credit card, that we pay off monthly.
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.