It always kills me when people find themselves ensconced within layer upon layer of debt (purchasing a house, which is ridiculously expensive in American notwithstanding) - why does it happen, when the "secret" to avoid it is literally a four-sentence doctrine: "Live within your means."
Let's be clear about one thing upfront - I have fallen off the wagon as well. I am not some "untouchable" individual avoiding debt's potent grip. Though I own my car, I too carry a balance on a credit card, as well as student loans. Unfortunately, it's all too easy.
However, they are both relatively minimal, all things considered. No, what I'm referring to seems to be a far larger plague upon this Western society of ours - our collective inability to live within our means, and as a consequence, build a life leadened with debilitating debt, instead of successfully navigating the consumption waters of society.
What's so easy about the doctrine? Simple - do not spend more than you have; it's that simple. If you make "x" amount of income per month, whether single or with a partner, then you may spend upwards of "x" in that month. It doesn't matter how much you decide to put towards a savings account, or retirement (hopefully some to both), or car payments, or student loans, or dinners, CD's, entertainment, clothing, baby food, etc - it just simply can NOT go beyond the amount that "x" is. And there you have it - you're living within your means. You are literally living within the boundaries that your income provides to you. It is honestly that simple, and that easy.
What's so hard about it, then? Many external factors, to be sure. There's our own desires and wants, of course (and note the very important distinction between "want" and "need" - our needs are roughly all the same, and it's a very short list - our wants are another beast entirely). There are the ideas and suggestions opined by our closest friends and relatives, informing us that we should/need/have "this thing here". And most dangerous of all, there's the ubiquitous marketing and advertisements of our daily lives that surround us everywhere, demanding we pay attention, and crave said product or lifestyle - this is arguable the most dangerous of all, for it is these advertisements that pull us away from logical thought, and prey upon our internal cravings for happiness and satisfaction. Therein lies the fallacy, of course - we cannot complement internal desire for peace, safety, happiness, and desire with external components; but nonetheless, we try and quelsh those very primordial desires with our external products, and marketers are only too happy to help. This is not to imply these people or corporations are inherently "evil", however (except for various tobacco and alcoholic methods, perhaps) - but they've hit on a good thing, and aren't about to stop.
Think about it - so many people I know simply "must have": cell phones; high-speed internet access; digital cable TV; services such as "Netflix", etc.; high-profile, expensive, new vehicles (usually SUV's); designer clothing; dining out evenings; high-priced entertainment, and so on. These things are not bad, or morally "wrong" - but how many people stop to consider if they can be AFFORDED? That is the rub, and it all goes back to the quintessential point of the maxim "live within your means" - are they in fact doing so, by adding on all these external costly components? If you can live comfortably while doing so, great! I'm pleased for you. But if you CANNOT, then guess what - though you may desire and crave them, if you cannot pay for them from the stash of "x", then you simply cannot have them. Not yet, anyway.
There are other ways to achieve comfortable living within a lower amount of "x", of course, without cutting out all of the "pleasure" additions, but for some reason, they tend to be frowned upon, or scoffed. There seems to be a social stigma to avoid thrift stores, garage sales, smaller houses, or old, used, "not-as-fancy" vehicles. Why? What are wrong with any of these things? If they are functional, nice, and cheap, then by all means - enjoy them. If a vehicle is perhaps older, dented, rusty, or simply not "minty fresh" and new, but has all structural components in the "green zone" for safety, why not purchase that and have it paid for, rather than fork over hundreds of dollars a month for a vehicle with the same safety rating, but that is thousands of dollars more?
Living within ones means is within the reach of all of us - it's right there, outlined in black and white, in our checkbooks and savings records. It's our weekly, monthly, and annual income after taxes, and it shall define exactly what we have at our disposal to meet all our monthly bill requirements, as well as entertainment frivolties (for myself, that would be DVD's, video games, and books). All we have to do is make financial choices, and stick with them.
That, or win the lottery.
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6 comments:
Yeah, your page is on my list of RSS feeds... So what? :-)
Anyway, I do agree with you for the most part. It's all too easy to get caught up in all the marketing and capitalism we see every day. I for one am a strong believer in the system. Evolution/Survival of the fittest. For better or worse, the system works. People that spend beyond their means will eventually pay for it. People who are responsible will eventually be rewarded. People who take risks by going into debt big time to buy that first house may flip it two years later and make 20K, or they might lose 20K.
If McDonalds/your local realtor/GM can market the crap out of their product and us poor unsuspecting people buy into it, good for them. They were smarter than the average Joe and managed to make a dime in the process. It may sound shallow, but the almighty dollar coupled with capitalism is just as good as it is evil. It's the ultimate balance. For every action, a reaction. Every dollar lost, is someone else's gain, and I have absolutely no problem with that!
Did I need to buy that shiny new SUV? That is a subjective question of which nobody is qualified to answer expect for me and my wife (and our horse whose darn hay was too heavy to be pulled by our old truck)! :) Good job GM! Enjoy my dollars, and that overpriced software you're running... I helped write it.
Paul Sir (you've been Knighted, didn't you know?)
You do make some strong points (although I think Darwin would disagree w/your use of "the fittest", *smile*); however, a few things trouble me.
First, your point about marketer's earning our dollar through their tenactiy would be ok IF it were an even playing field (meaning, marketers played fair, and simply advertised their product). But unfortunately, we have the lables "false", and "misleading advertising" for reasons (sighting the tobacco industry for one). In addition, it's been a proven fact through psychological studies that human beings have an innate desire to be happy, and in addition, to be easily persuaded (hence the absolute success of "advertising"); because of this, marketers have often used sly, subversive, and manipulative marketing technics to beguile consumers, without us knowing our emotional psyche's are being played with. Finally, it may be legal to spend billions (that's with a "b") a year for companies such as Burger King or McDonald's to market toys and clothing to our children in order to hook them while their impressionable youngsters on thier products, but is it ethical?
The other point you mention is "every dollar lost is someone else's gain", but have you considered it to be as black and white as that? If I stole millions through ingenious accounting practices, or flat-out lied to consumers about a products in exchange for thier "almighty dollar", would these practices be given the green light based on your mantra? I think there are shades of grey involved that should be considered, and ethically guarded against, otherwise, swindling and stealing wouldn't be crimes.
In the end, no one is MAKING us buy at Walk-Mart, McDonald's, or GM, to be sure - but the playing field isn't exactly even, with billions in assests and psychologists (if you think these companies don't employ people to find out how to play to our fears and subconscious, you're fooling yourself) on their side, versus our side of money to spend, and limited information provided about such products, thus making for some interesting transactions to say the least.
But hey - I'm off to buy comics and video games, so something working out for their side. :-)
I hate to beat the activist horse yet again but I recently saw the film, "Maxed Out." Which you may have guessed from the title has to do with debt. It's a revealing commentary on predatory lending. On the one hand you realize how ignorant people are when it comes to borrowing but on the other, you learn how the industry deliberately obfuscates the situation to the detriment of customers.
Hey now, I never claimed that "stealing millions through ingenious accounting practices" or "lying to consumers" is something I condone. All I was trying to say is that marketing through legal means is not something I'm overly worried about. Truth in advertising is important and companies that don't follow this should be held accountable. However, I'm not about to feel sorry for consumers who were "tricked" by clever (and legal) marketing.
Ethics? Sure, there are ethical issues out there. I'm not sure if targeting cigarettes to teens is legal or not, but I agree it certainly isn't ethical.
Why is fast food different? You could argue it’s Just as unhealthy, but like it or not, it’s not illegal for little Timmy to eat a quarter pounder, but it is illegal for him to smoke a cigarette. If the FDA decides to make fast food illegal for minors, I’ll change my tune.
As for fast food marketing toys to children while failing to mention how unhealthy it is. Would you really expect anything different? Why on earth would you expect a company to "advertise" the worst parts of their product? Disclose that information? Sure. Advertise? No. I can see it now: "Try our new Juicy fat burger! It has only 800 calories!" Yeah, that'll work! You actually see this type of advertising all the time with drug commercials, such as those for Viagra and whatnot. 4 hours? Wow! Anyway, I believe all of those require prescriptions, thus we get to play the legal card again.
At the end of the day, holding big businesses accountable (video game publishers comes to mind) for products that may not be well suited for everyone (or even healthy) is something I have very little respect for. If you don't want little Timmy playing those violent video games, don't blame it on the game maker or the marketer, blame the parents. For the most part, all the information parents need is readily available. They just have to take it upon themselves to look at it and make decisions for themselves.
God gave us free will and a free market. It's up to us to use that freedom wisely.
End rant… :)
Paul,
You make two fantastic points, and ones I wholeheartedly agree with.
The first: indeed, why would, and should, companies big or small advertise their products' shortcomings? It would be detrimental if they did, so I don't expect them to. Should they, and do they NEED to disclose that information? Of course, and they're legally required to do so. And true, while they don't have to make it easy to find (most of them don't, which is unfortunate), legally they aren't beaking any rules. So yes, as long as there's full disclosure, clearly they can market anyway they wish. But again, MANY companies market flat-out FALSE, or very misleading advertising (the "ruggedness" and alluded "extra safetiness" of SUV's comes to mind) simply because people don't know the difference between what's real and what's exaggerated, or the companies know that no one (at least on a large scale) will call them on it. Yes, this isn't true all the time, hence class-action lawsuits; but for the most part, it is, which makes things very unfortunate. Having the attitude of "buyer beware" all the time, even when you were mislead as a consumer, is kind of rough, don't you think?
Anyway, the second point: HELL'S YES, parents are the #1 factor in a child's upbringing (not only, mind you, just #1), and therefore, are the most important filter for what does and does not make it's way into the child's consciousness. And I wholeheartedly agree w/you on the whole video-game thing, bigtime (but that's another discussion). But really, can a "parent filter" catch everything? Of course not, that's unrealistic. But so is giving carte blanche (sp?) to companies to design, create, and market any product they wish; and clearly, society as a whole agrees, otherwise, we wouldn't have the guidelines in place that we do now. I mean, you can't just dream up anything you want, especially things that are extremely dangerous, and say, "Hey, you're the consumer, you need to make your own decisions - but here, buy my new 'Adder in a Sack' toy, it's fun!" because then we'd just have chaos. Letting companies go without any accountability for their product is extremely dangerous, and very irresponsible. That's like driving any way you want, and saying, "Hey, you're a driver too, you need to decide whether or not to go on a road and drive with me".
I think we're really closer on this than it seems, however. Ultimately, there needs to be greater action on both sides, I think. More accountability on the companies side for designing and selling a better, safer, more truthfully advertised product; and WAY more research and inquiry done on the consumer side, w/out the mantra of "Oh well, if I don't like the product, I'll just sue them", because that disgusts me just as much.
Damn this free will! Can't we just live w/our communist brethren the world over, and have things spoonfed to us, and be told how to dress, eat, and live? Oh, wait...
"marketing through legal means is not something I'm overly worried about. Truth in advertising is important and companies that don't follow this should be held accountable. However, I'm not about to feel sorry for consumers who were "tricked" by clever (and legal) marketing."
I don't think anyone would disagree with your general premise here Paul. The point I was alluding to (though I didn't state it explicitly) is that this 'grey' area between what is ethical and what is legal is precisely that contested area of social space that helps establish legal precident. I'm sure you understand that laws are based upon socially established norms and moral behavior. The question we seem to be addressing here is the difference between which issues should be addressed by regulatory legislation and those which should be left for individuals to decide.
Getting back to Dave's original post, I think he is simply bemoaning the ubiquity and influence of advertising and the the irresponsibility of rampant consumerism. I think on that we all agree. What I had a lot of trouble with is the statement in Paul's first post,
"People that spend beyond their means will eventually pay for it. People who are responsible will eventually be rewarded."
I don't think that the issue is so black and white, and I think that this is a very dangerous myth about consumption. Then again I always have trouble believing statements that imply "everyone gets what they deserve."
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