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Bad times aren’t in Financial Peace

bad-times-arent-in-financial-peace

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Living very close to DC, we get some pretty incredible news, and it’s all the worst from 3 areas.  I can’t say tri-state, because DC isn’t a state, but you get my drift.  We don’t just get news of murders in Virginia, but also in Maryland and DC.  It may be imagination, but the number of entire families dieing in homicide/suicides seems to be increasing.  If I had to give an uneducated, bias guess, I’d wager it is directly related to the economy.  In yesterday’s news was the story of a father who killed his wife and three young children before committing suicide.  The report included their substantial credit card and mortgage debt.  There’s another case of an entire family found dead in a Maryland hotel.  The parents had driven down from NY to visit their daughter in college.  Speculation immediately runs to financial problems.  To be fair, I don’t know what happened.  This is why I can’t wait to attend Dave Ramsey’s Townhall tomorrow night.  I hope you’ll consider going.

When I do manage to read the newspaper- most times I just don’t make it passed the doom and gloom.  Some times I come across a story that I think I might share here.  One such I read in my local newspaper.  It’s called Stimulus Logic. It detailed the difference between Bush’s and Obama’s tax credit.  If you’ll remember when Bush was in office we got a check in the mail.  The story said it was $500, but I remembered it being $600.  Regardless, the millions of dollars sent back into the economy did little to boost it.  Why? Because people paid debt that had already falsely boosted the economy.  With Obama in office, it won’t be a single check, but more in weekly checks by reducing withholdings. As a result, you get more in each check, which, if all goes as planned- hopefully you’ll spend instead of saving or paying down already incurred debt.  Those participating in Financial Peace will make educated decisions on where to spend this “found” money.  Since you cash flow, you’ll spend each and every dollar on paper.  You’ll be aware of that extra $20. You might stick it in a blow envelope, or you may use it on your debt snowball.  Whatever you decide, you’ll know it’s there. It won’t seem like free money.  Of course, this plan does nothing to help those on unemployment, but I suppose since we currently have no income, that we’ll have less taxes.  I can see how Obama’s plan helps to stimulate the economy.  My first reaction is to be upset because I want my $500 up front to spend as I would (which would go to pay the last $600 we owe on a medical bill).   But, I get it.  I’m still not convinced that it will be the governments scramble to try to save the “credit industry” will be what saves the economy.  I still believe it’ll be you and me.  We’ll realize that driving $400 a month cars is just silly.  We’ll be more excited about having $5000 in savings instead of $5000 in credit card debt.  We’ll teach our children to be more mature and patient than our parents raised most of us to be.  We’ll teach them to save and pay for things with cash (and get it cheaper!).  Affording things means we have the cash right then and there to pay “for it”- instead of hoping to have the income to pay “on it”.  

In the end, I think the current economy will be better for the environment (Happy Earth Day by the way). We’re being less wasteful, turning off lights, buying cars that don’t eat gas.  Once upon a time the idea of eating leftovers was just something I couldn’t stomach.  I didn’t even bother to take it home from restaurants.  Now I plan weekly menus around it.  I think of what went down my garbage disposale and I’m embarrassed.  

We also learn how important public institutions- such as the public library system дивани are.  In all fairness, I do have a Masters in library science.  But I love that I have to wait in line at the local library because more people are using it. More people are taking their kids to the library to check out books instead of buying books.  Families who once afford monthly gymnastics programs are opting instead to take their children to storytime- which is free.  Since Jason became unemployed, we’ve gone down to bare bones.  Right now we’re keeping our internet access- reasoning that we need it for job searches, and email, and filing for unemployment.  So far, it’s turned out to be accurate.  I’m online all the time- my husband rarely.  I know he’s used the internet more in the last few weeks than he ever does.  His internet usage in the past has been around Fantasy Football.  Now it’s searching for jobs, researching companies, making contacts, setting up interviews.  But I know- for the moment- we’re fortunate that we keep it.  If it comes to the choice of paying for health insurance or our ISP, our ISP will be the first to go- hands down.  So, off to the library we’ll go.  It’ll be inconvenient.  We’ll have to sign up, use our allotted hour, and repeat.  I know there are familes who only get internet access at the library.  I suspect the number doing so has risen with the rate of foreclosures- which has been exceptionally high in our area.  

One last story I’d like to share with you is concerning church attendance during the recession.  Some studies suggest that church attendance is higher, and that people are switching from denomination to evangelical churches.  I attend the latter, and while my return to “religion” was more centered around the death of my daughter, I have noticed a climb in membership, and our church definitely reports that- while the economy is down- the weekly offerning has gone up, sometimes almost doubling the projected operating need for that week.   Our church teaches Financial Peace, and I’m sure that has a barring on the trend, more so than people who have just recently started attending services.   Since J was laid off, I have learned much about total trust in God.  We pray to God to give us our daily bread, but do we mean it?  We want to know about next weeks, next years bread too.  How about my bread when I’m 65 God?  I’ve resigned to the fact that there can’t be certainty in this life.  In relying less on ourselves, and more of God brings more people to him (as the article suggests), then that’s one other plus coming from these tough times.  I’m with Dave, I don’t think things are as bad as the media makes them out to be.  -This comeing from someone whose family is drawaing unemployment.  Things will get better.  They’ll be fine for again.  They’ll get worse again if we don’t make some radical changes, but for those striving for Financial Peace, the bad times won’t be that bad.

April 22, 2009 | Filed Under Just Whatever 

One Response to “Bad times aren’t in Financial Peace”

  1. Frugalocal on June 12th, 2009

    I agree that financial strain definitely makes people think about what’s most important. It will be interesting to see what happens when the economy improves.

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