Thursday, May 21, 2009

Live within Your Means


Do not have something that you cannot afford, forget about what you want to have or what you deserve, if you cannot pay for it, just do not buy it.

During recession [economic decline] as what is occurring in America right now, people are losing their homes and becoming homeless, some of them are living in their cars, others are in a desperate search for work and they are learning how to live all over again.

All this financial mess occurred because people were living beyond their means, they were loaning money from banks; by getting a mortgage on their house, they borrow money to buy other things; cars, clothes and all they want. But as they cannot afford this monthly mortgage payments, the bank took their houses and they were in debts. Either people are losing their jobs or they could not find any. What also leads to this economic collapse is the massive use of credit cards in America especially.

The aching part of this crisis is that those people were borrowing money to buy unimportant stuff; instead of one car they want another one, they are just buying what they want rather than what they need and they are not even buying them with their own money.

As a result of this way of living, most of the people for example in California, are living in tents, they are calling the place: tent cities. Those people were from the middle class, right now they are having troubles in finding jobs and they are suffering from the crisis that they unknowingly created with the misleading participation from banks.

In these circumstances that they are facing; living in tents, no oven, if they want water they have to walk three miles to get it; they appreciate all the things they used to have. They always say this will never happen to us or anybody whom we know. Some of them have kids but they did not tell them about their situation so as not to add a burden.

When families are forced to leave their homes they cannot afford, they left all their close memories; their albums and photos. All this put a real face of this recession, people who used to donate are now in need of this donation.

People who are surviving this recession say: if they go back to their better days, they would do different; they were going to save rather than spending. They would live within their means; spending money on what they need and buying what they want only when they could afford it. Furthermore, they would extend their kindness and grace to somebody else.

From Oprah Winfery Show