The wife and I had a long chat about budgeting our money for the future on Monday. We sized up our current incomes, the debts we owe, and what we will need in the near to distant future. Like everyone else out there, we are pretty much fucked.
For fun, we set up a budget that would have our credit cards paid off in exactly one year, provided we never went out to eat, had to pay for gas, shopped only at the big box superstores (via the bus lines) that have various meats with 90 shelf lives (unholy and delicious), and never turned the thermostat above 50 in the winter or below 90 in the summer. Sweet financial freedom. Fuck that. I like my big dirty pints of Guinness after a hard week of kowtowing to the man. I like to occasionally go see a movie or buy a fancy bobble on the Amazon.com. Sometimes I even like to eat a sandwich for lunch instead of nothing.
Yesterday, I was cutting my friend's hair, and he gave me a book to read. Before you ask, yes I hang out with literate peoples. It was something akin to planning your financial future even if you start really late and very deep in debt. I looked it over and realized that the wife and I had been doing exactly what the book said years ago, "paying ourselves first" and what not. Oh yeah, I've got a couple of thousand dollars in a retirement account that is quickly tanking right now. My house is worth about $15000 less than what I paid for it, and the credit cards are charging us upwards of $200 a month for the privilege of owing them money.
This morning, I turned on the news and the world is going to hell in a handbasket. The dollar has officially gone into the toilet, the housing market is kaput, and the price of food is skyrocketing. I went to work with a smile on my face. I thought, "Huh, if I can pay off most of my debt in a year, why am I so panicked? I have a job, a wife, a house, and am fairly healthy. Who really cares what happens?"
I am totally voting for Nader again.
2 comments:
Hey, the good news is gold is worth $1000.00 per ounce. Isn't that reassuring? Just melt down your golden sofa, your golden dailyware and place settings, your golden air conditioning unit, your golden hamburgers and all that golden gold you have, and you're set.
Wait. I just read the bad news. Plastic gold is still worth $D00-doo per ounce, which means I have nothing still.
On the "seriously" reassuring side (cuz my family is right there with you) when the disgruntled masses rise up and set fire to the rich-man we won't burn. That reassurance doesn't pay the gas bill. But there it is.
Where in the heck have I been, when did you start blogging again?! I suuuck!
Debt consolidation, huh? I'm thinking about adding tons of bunk beds and getting 20 roommates, so that the rent would come to about $37.50 a month for each of us. The toilet-paper bill would skyrocket, but I'd like to think I'd still be able to knock out some credit card debt.
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