Dave Ramsey --Christian Living,Enough of Anything is Too much

Dave Ramsey- Nationally syndicated columnist for Christian Living magazine-

 Christian Living-Enough of Anything is Too Much

By Dave Ramsey

Our nation's financial situation, with record budget deficits and bank failures, is deplorable. However, it is only a reflection of our own personal inability to "just say no" to ourselves. Our failure to get control of our personal financial matters will have to be addressed before we can demand accountability from elected officials. Our spoiled Congress is a reflection of our spoiled selves. The good of our country is overlooked to serve pet special-interest groups, just as the long-term good of the family is overlooked so Dad or Mom can have that special trinket they desire.

A Must Have It Now Society

As a people, we have forgotten how to delay pleasure. We are living in a microwave society. We must have it, and we must have it now! As well-known motivational speaker, Brian Tracy, says, "We are being taught by everything around us to have dessert before dinner." Now we are paying for our lack of knowledge and discipline.

            We must not be misled into believing these problems are faced only by large companies or deadbeats. On the contrary, they exist in typical American families with two kids, a dog and dinner every night. I have met with these families, and they are just regular folks. Their situation has just gotten out of control.

            The Consumer Report Money Book states that the typical household is $38,000 in debt, and that total consumer debt has almost tripled just since 1980. In 1980 the total consumer debt was $1.3 trillion. Now, a few short years later, it is incredibly beyond $3.3 trillion.

A recent survey conducted by Consolidated Counseling Services found that 71% of Americans say debts are making their home lives unhappy. A recent study in The Wall Street Journal stated that 70 % of the American public lives from paycheck to paycheck. Interestingly, a Marist Institute poll published soon after The Wall Street Journal article stated that 55% are worried. I guess the other 15% are asleep.

            A study done on the typical bankruptcy by the University of Texas in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania recently confirms this. Published in The Wall Street Journal, the study noted that the typical person filing for bankruptcy is not a guy under a bridge or real estate high roller, but is rather a "well-educated, middle-class baby boomer with big time credit card debt."

Changes in the Way Americans Handle Money

            Since the Civil War, we have seen a steady change in the way Americans handle their money. As a boy in the 1850s-prior to the Civil War-my great-great-grandfather lived in Indiana. In his memoirs, he mentioned a family who owned a neighborhood farm. That family got the fever to move West, but they couldn't because, unlike most anyone else in the country, they owed money on their farm. The language my great-great grandfather used to discuss their mortgage gave insight into the attitude of the day regarding debt. He gave the impression that one should pity that family as if they had cancer or view them as sinners who had a skeleton in their closet. That view of debt is completely foreign to us today. Astonishingly, the mortgage in question was only five dollars!

Fast-forward to the seventies, eighties, nineties and the new millennium-we have seen lending and borrowing at an all-time high in modern history. We want it all, and we can borrow to get it all before we can afford it all. Over the last forty years, we have gradually become a nation of consumers instead of the nation of producers we used to be.

Enough is Enough

            I had finally had enough! Enough living in bondage to "stuff." Enough having a bank collector, credit card collector or mortgage company ruin my evening with collection calls. I got sick and tired of it! And when I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, I decided to learn something about money-how it works (how it really works) and how to work it. I decided to learn the things that were not taught in college finance classes. I decided-after losing virtually everything I owned-that I was tired of living in stress due to money or the lack of money.

            Is there hope? Absolutely! But first we must shift our view of "stuff" and money. We have to learn how to handle both. I see dramatic things happening to people who apply simple and forgotten principles such as creating a budget and telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.

You too can take control and turn you personal financial problems and challenges into opportunities. The first step consists of sitting down with your spouse (if you are married) or with your financial records at the start of every month to give every dollar a name. You can redirect your entire life within a short period of time. I am optimistic that our nation can and will be saved by a return to simple, basic principles that have been taught and lived since Old Testament times.