Welcome, Ven a gozar!

Well over a century ago when things were not simpler, just different. One of my ancestors, most likely my great Grandfather, had some legal problems in Ireland that became serious enough he found his way into a courtroom. He was made a prisoner aboard an English ship, jumped ship in Canada and made his way into the United States, and settled in Michigan.

My great Grandfather saw a lot of things change in his time much like we do today. In his day, in a little town in Michigan, he worked, saved and had a successful life. This was still in the horse and buggy day, so the cost of living was quite low compared to today at the turn of the century. A lot has changed since that time. A few of the changes that took place were railroads and track, automobiles and roads, federal income tax, world wars, the great depression, and that is only the high level view.

For the individuals of their time, people just like like you and I were slowly drawn into a life of consumerism. Suddenly goods that people had been happy with for many years were suddenly old, faded, worn, or there were exciting new products out there that people just could not live without. People went from saving as much of their pay checks as they could, to spending their paychecks, and some spent faster than others.

For many of us learning from our parents and their good life in the fifties and sixties we have become a nation of debtors chasing instant gratification. Over half of us can not always pay our bills on time, nor can many of us afford what we owe. We have evolved not into just buying this we want, but replacing perfectly good items with newer items, primarily our cars. For many of us we do not need a new car, we want a new car.

Unfortunately, because we are creatures of habit, our car spending thinking trickles down to all aspects of our life. We could work our way out of debt, but we choose not to generally. The steps for getting out of debt are easy, while following those steps are not. It is much easier not to put ourselves in that position to start with.

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spending, debt, credit, credit card, great depression, consumerism