I am not an economist.
But I am someone who's been observing how myself and others spend money. How we use credit and the wants of not we as individuals but we as a society.
Last year I found myself in credit card debt- completely by accident (whoops)- and was quite offended by it; I've fancied myself quite a savvy spender, one adept at making budgets (though not as adept at keeping to them) and cognizant of occasional splurges on a credit card.
When debt set in upon me (i.e. when I realized I had no way to keep up with my credit card payments) I took to journaling my debt-induced woes and anxious ramblings. For a year I've chronicled how it was I can to end up in debt when I was taking pains to be frugal. It was in this journey that I became highly attuned to the increasing media coverage of Americans and America in debt.
Well, now it's almost impossible to shut out the deafening scream of our collective financial problems but I'm all ears nonetheless.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Who knows how we will be effected by this economic down turn in the years to come, but I have trouble envisioning consumerism halting.
Jobs are disappearing and yet NPR reported on rising sales in Halloween costumes this year. We like to escape in costume or into the bliss of a new toy. Iphone purchasing may be down this holiday system, but how many people are still going around with their $100+/month media plans for the convenience of checking personal email on the fly? And I won't deny that nice-to-haves become need-to-haves for the sake of convenience. But really, what will it take to get us to cut back? I suppose this is something to revisit in the next 6 months, 12 months...?
From what I make of it, the most important thing to do in this situation is to maintain a paycheck, make sure to have liquid cash for emergencies and if we're going to have these "needs-to-haves" then don't use credit for them.
(A certain and recurring error of my youth was when facial treatments, acupuncture, dinners with friends, a great pair of black pants and such were so absolutely necessary that even without the money in my account, a credit card was. That and less-than-stellar men are errors of my 20s that I'm glad to have moved on from.)
Jobs are disappearing and yet NPR reported on rising sales in Halloween costumes this year. We like to escape in costume or into the bliss of a new toy. Iphone purchasing may be down this holiday system, but how many people are still going around with their $100+/month media plans for the convenience of checking personal email on the fly? And I won't deny that nice-to-haves become need-to-haves for the sake of convenience. But really, what will it take to get us to cut back? I suppose this is something to revisit in the next 6 months, 12 months...?
From what I make of it, the most important thing to do in this situation is to maintain a paycheck, make sure to have liquid cash for emergencies and if we're going to have these "needs-to-haves" then don't use credit for them.
(A certain and recurring error of my youth was when facial treatments, acupuncture, dinners with friends, a great pair of black pants and such were so absolutely necessary that even without the money in my account, a credit card was. That and less-than-stellar men are errors of my 20s that I'm glad to have moved on from.)
Friday, October 10, 2008
State of the Nation
It's the American Dream to want more than we have (how else would we ascend to more than we are?). In light of the current economic crisis, are Americans really going to start pinching their pennies when our government and financial institutions haven't been? Conservation seems to have been weeded out of the American genetic code in the Fifties- as the nation became a boomtown, running away from the memories of the Depression as fast as possible.
So happy to again be a land of plenty. To have plenty, spend plenty, dispose of plenty.
So happy to again be a land of plenty. To have plenty, spend plenty, dispose of plenty.
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