Americans And Debt: Do The Two Go Hand And Hand

What Is It with Americans and Debt?

We as a society find out day after day that American people live well beyond their financial means and it shows by the cars that we drive and the clothes that we wear. It is a statistical fact that 44% of the American population has encountered some type of bump in the road and the lingering shadow of debt has slowly trickled into a bad credit situation and a good example of this can be found right in your wallet, that’s right that credit card debt stares you right in your face everyday. Now not all debt is completely bad, there is good debt such as a student loan payments or mortgage payments and these give you many advantages such as an education or equity in your home but most in that 44% have bad debt and which has no real upside financially because of the high interest rates and hidden charges.

When you live paycheck to paycheck and and save for that rainy day or better yet your retirement it is no question that many Americans are living far outside their means. This kind of behavior is encouraged by American society. This is hard to believe but why?

Because in America, economic growth is seen as key to a healthy economy. And what is economic growth? You guessed it. Yes, it means more and better jobs, more people working, and making more money, but it also means more people buying more things. In fact, a large part of economic growth is based on how much we spend every year. And guess what? This number (how much we spend every year) is not split up between how much of that is debt and how much of that is actually money of our own that we earned. It simply says we spent X amount of dollars to shop. That’s right. It means that a large part of that number could actually be you going into debt to buy those goods, but it actually looks like “growth.” In fact, this is a fake measure of how healthy our economy is, because your own personal economy is certainly not healthy if you’re in debt to get things you don’t need and that will not give you a positive return in the long run, such as an education would.

So there is an expectation for Americans regarding the way that budgets are managed more wisely without going into debt until the economy as a collective whole can comprehend how to and the economy’s monetary health or possible sickness in regard to real money instead of erroneous reflected in dollars.

Now, that’s a little facetious to ask, because of course Americans can learn how to manage their own budgets even without the government providing a good role model. But it does beg the question that the government, too, needs to go on a budget “diet”. In fact, our own national debt is in excess of $12 trillion.

If you need to know how you can completely cut back on your spending; it isn’t that hard but can be interesting in the ways that can be cut back? Do you think you can do it properly without having any questionable spending habits. One way that can definitely help is to stop the spending is to drop the Seattles Best for some good old fashioned home brewed coffee, putting a stop to the buying of new clothes until you actually wear those items that have the tags on them and quite possibly the most under utilized thoughts of actually driving that car you just had to have and drive it a few more years instead of swapping it out for a new set of wheels because you don’t have to worry about it. If you are living well and don’t need to worry about these types of things then disregard the previous statements but unfortunately most Americans do have to worry about having to cut back on the spending habits. You should figure out what your basic needs are that get you by financially from month to month and cut them back until you have the real debts paid off such as credit card debts and all the other frivolous debts paid off.

You never know? We as a society could quite possibly be role models to the government in regard to the spending habits and balancing debt.

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