In the New Year

Budget: bud·get
Pronunciation: \ˈbə-jət\
Function: noun
The amount of money that is available for, required for, or assigned to a particular purpose.

Not that I would ever tell someone what to do (no, not me) but perhaps a useful resolution for all in 2009.

Today's Wonderful Life

Did anyone catch the "It's a Wonderful Life" broadcast?

While watching last year for what could have been the 83rd time, I was mesmerized anew by the honest emotional conflicts the film captures. The tortured self-examination of a man on the brink of suicide is to this day so laceratingly real and mature, yet exists in this Americana snow globe, shaken only at the holidays.

What a piece of film making!

And what an odd tale to have burrowed its way into the seasonal American fabric, just consider;
A) George Bailey is good, but not always nice
B) There are no song and dance numbers- this is certainly no "White Christmas," and
C)The telephone scene between Mary and George- hot!

But those observations are 'so last year'.

This year the classic enlightens me again, but this time it's all about Potter- who, in today's economy, should be the man of the hour. A sour puss- yes, a kill joy- most certainly, a voice of reason- perhaps.

George beseeches the angry mob to remember that without the Savings & Loan, Potter would be able to keep the citizens of Bedford Falls in his slums, kicking out tenants who can't make their payments and that it was George, his father and uncle who made the dream of home ownership possible for those who would have otherwise been held under Potter's thumb (a more lovable Countrywide, if you will).

The fictional citizens in a 1946 film were striving for what the hard working people of present day America have been given- the powerful tool of credit; to obtain a better life, to strive and achieve more, to ultimaltely exceed their wildest dreams.

And with that excess, we are all learning what 'too much of a good thing' looks and feels like.

Thoughts for the Christmas season.

Storytime

Once upon a time there was a princess who possessed the magical power to obtain whatever she wanted immediately. Poof! Voila!

The only hitch was that the princess had to eventually pay for those items.
That wouldn't be hard, no, of course not.
But my, how the Princess could shop and travel and dine. My, my.

Then one day the Princess realized that she'd been excessive in her magic carpet rides.
And there was no Fairy Godmother coming to turn Amex into fairy dust.
My, my.

'Debt', it turns out, is what happens when there is more on your credit cards than you can pay off. And with this realization, the princess started to feel more like a toad.
Did she faint? No?
Ask the King, her father, for help? Nay.
The little lady went hardcore She-Ra on her spending habits.

And the rest, well the rest is being revised as we speak. The princess is your very own, Miss Mary Joan (spoiler alert) and it turns out she wrote a book. Or at least the draft of a book.

OK, I'm tired of the story telling. Back to glorious first person...me, me, me. I mean, this is a blog, not naptime.

As I was saying-
In the middle of my financial fury, I also wrote about my crusade to reinvent my spending habits.

Surely I couldn't be the only one who was errant in my spending ways?
I wondered. I wrote.

I became tenderly aware of other people's habits.
And aware of what the banks were doing.
And what seems now to be the whole world's errant manner of spending.

Now that I've written as much as I have, I can't stop. Hence blog.
There's just too much fodder out there not to.

And in the meantime I'm revising my book, though it's in what I call the "Cud Stage".

It's just cud now, we'll see how I end up spitting it up.