Who controls YOUR money, you or your creditors? Do you look forward to payday or dread it because it may not be enough to pay the bills? If you chose the second choice of both questions then you are not alone by far! This day and age has teens receiving credit cards before they have even been taught to make wise financial decisions.
Money is available to anyone, even if you have 'bad' or 'no credit'.
This is why so many people, Americans especially, are so far in debt to the point of drowning and must use bankruptcy to see day light.
The definition of needs and wants are totally switched in today's' society.
A need should only be the basic needs to survive.
A want is everything else! So, why do today's' teens feel they will surely die if their cell phone is taken away? Society has made it a norm to have cell phones partly because of safety reasons, but mostly because of social reasons.
If they are not provided with a phone they feel left out of the 'in' crowd.
Some parents will make them work for it and some will give in and get them one just because they don't want their teen to hate them.
Hence, no understanding of what needs are compared to wants.
Those who have lived through many years, our elders as some would call them, can look back and see that going out to buy a car with a loan rather than making do with the not-so-good-looking vehicle they already have wasn't really that urgent compared to making memories with their children or providing food for their family.
Maybe those people with such wisdom should speak out more against credit and strive to return to the 'basics first - wants later' philosophy! Americans would be in such better shape financially if that were the case! Who has the biggest influence on our children today? Is it the government, the Pop Stars, the Rich, or the elders? I believe it is the elders because who spends the first 18 years of a childs' life with them? Yes, our elders, their parents and grandparents.
Being an example can start at any age.
Who are you influencing in your day-to-day financial decisions? To quote the mother of Forrest Gump, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get" is to say you have no control over your life.
That is not true.
Some things are uncontrollable but definitely not your finances.
The decisions you make can either make you wealthy or make you poor but it all weighs on your decisions.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have money in your pockets at all times, so much that when the pregnant lady in front of you at the check-out line, who is holding a toddler and trying to search her purse for enough money to buy food and diapers, comes up short, you could step in and pay the rest so she can feed and clothe them babies? How does a person get out of debt when they are drowning? How does a person stay debt free you ask? Well this is where I will share with you a link to one of our elders who has been through it all.
He built his own wealth to a very high level and then lost all of it and was pulled down into the valley of being broke, poor, barely able to provide his basic needs.
He then decided to do it the correct way, the strange, out-of-ordinary way of providing for his family and also building wealth that cannot be taken away from him.
His philosophy in life is to "live like nobody else so that later you can LIVE like nobody else".
This meaning, only buy your BASIC needs and pay off your debts with the rest of your money, building up a savings for emergency, and then later in life you can LIVE, being able to have what you want, when you want it because you have no debts to pay, only living expenses.
The name of this wise person is Dave Ramsey.
If you would like to learn more about how he did it, then click on this link daveramsey.
com and you will be in awe of the inspiring stories being told every day on his website and radio show.