My Favorite Business Resources
- Cheap Business Phone Service - Make phone calls anywhere for free or darn close to it.
- Cheap Printing - Always amazing deals on cheap printing with loads of free items.
- Manage Mobile Phone Costs - Great phone for controlling cell phone costs for business or teenagers.
- Really Good Web Hosting - As bullet proof as there is. A strong hosting provider with all the resources you need.

My Favorite Credit Resources
- Consolidate Your Debt - One monthly payment. Stop collection calls.
- Help Budgeting - Online and easy.
- Lower Your Car Payment - Refinance to reduce your monthly payment.
- Credit Report / Credit Score - This consolidated report is better than most.
- Credit Cards - Find the best card for you for low rates, balance transfer, credit rebuilding and rewards.

May

2008

Inevitable Sadness Permeates Credit Card Activity. WTF Consumers!

Posted by Steve Rhode as Uncategorized

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If there ever was anyone that better understood and was sympathetic to the underlying issues and subconscious issues that drive good people into bad debt, it’s me. I’ve been in the financial crapper myself and then I built my personal finance professional life on helping people tackle these issues.

And as much as I don’t want to say “But”, a recent article titled Barely Surviving on Credit Cards has left me beaten down with frustration and twinge of an inevitability that there is no brilliant morning sun rise to ever welcome a new era of financial responsibility.

The same arguments consumers make today, they made decades ago as well thought out justifications for digging yet deeper financial holes from which never to crawl out from.

No longer able to turn their homes for cash, Americans are increasingly using plastic to meet their basic living expenses. But many can’t afford to pay the bills.

I understand the reasons why people turn to plastic in times of need. A baby needs to be fed, a tire needs to be replaced to get to work or the heating bill needs to be paid in a cold winter month. All of those reasons I’ve heard time and time again as justifications for using a credit card in desperate financial times.

The overextension of credit is a two stage process. It is as symbiotic as the fish that thrive swimming around the gills of deadly sharks. Banks don’t make money from their credit card business unless consumers use the cards and rack up interest and fee income for the banks.

A credit card is not an inalienable right that we hold to be self-evident. If is not a tool that can be called upon with no limitation. Hell even the ever powerful USS Enterprise warp drives needed dilithuim crystals and in early days the Trekies reported them not to be in an unlimited supply.

Loving Advice From the Heart

Sometimes, accidents happen. After all, if we knew they were going to happen we’d call them an “on purpose” instead. But where my patience is running a bit thin, today, is when people knowingly continue to use credit cards in ongoing situations where there is no future expectation to repay the debt. In that case people are just selling themselves into future financial slavery for something today.

One memorable moment in helping people was when one woman sternly proclaimed to me that the reason she could not pay her bills was because she was not getting out of bed for some $10 an hour job. “I have a Masters degree and I don’t work for that kind of money”, she spat at me.

And in the Barely Surviving on Credit Cards article I read:

“The retired criminology professor also has tried to get a job at a local college in order to supplement her Social Security and savings. But she found would-be employers either paid too little or told her she was overqualified. Her only other options were minimum-wage jobs at local retailers.”

So in the most sympathetic tone I can muster, the advice that comes to mind is, Get Your Fucking Ass Out of Bed and Work. Take any job that rewards your efforts with income. A $10 an hour job makes you more money than a $0 job sitting at home. And if you don’t like your sucky job, get another one, a second one, or a new one.

Maybe I’m being far too harsh here but really. I’ve had to do it. I worked some of the worst temp jobs in the world when I was flat broke and had to care for my family. The thought of sitting at home doing nothing was never an option, but maybe that’s just me.

I understand how depression and sadness can lead to making it difficult to want to take action but we can’t make it acceptable to not wipe your own ass if you can. We should encourage those around us with love and understanding to make the necessary moves to get a job and then when that doesn’t work, drive their ass around and help them to find a job, any job.

For those that can work and contribute, it should never be acceptable to not participate. It should never be acceptable for consumers to fall back on months and months of “I had to continue to borrow money I could not pay back on my credit card”.

There is a period of understanding and adjustment when slapped with financial misfortune but after that you’ve just got to make the necessary moves to get your life to fit within your income. And if you are in a situation when you will be able to make ends meet by making changes but unable to ever repay your old debts, well then file bankruptcy and move on to a more responsible future life. I’m not being cavalier with that advice, just pragmatic.

If it’s raining, seek shelter. If it’s hot outside, see coolness inside. If crack kills, don’t do crack. And if you can’t afford your current life and MUST use credit cards to get from this month to next, stop that. It’s a plan with no happy ending.

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Steve