July 4, 2015
Dr. Ron Paul (22-year US Congressman) suggests that 72% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck — using loans, credit and family or friends to avoid the street when that paycheck doesn\’t come…
On this 4th of July I had a chance to reflect on how many days, weeks, months and years I have frittered away — not only waiting on that paycheck — but worrying about what I can and can\’t afford to do while honoring all-of-my-bills (and keeping some cash aside for emergencies). I wish I had the balls of a Frenchman I know who takes out big loans to live like a king and gradually pays the loans back. He calls it \”living on other people\’s money\” and feels certain that he\’ll never have to pay the loans back in their entirety.
He lives large…like the US government!
And this is where I agree with Dr. Paul — who suggests there is a reckoning in store and that US $18 trillion debt will not be taken care of by the little fiscal elves in-the-dead-of-night; rather, most of US will be looking at hard times — at new frugal lifestyles foisted upon US by the Greedy and the Selfish (the 1%) who will most certainly try to convince US that the good years we had were financed by THEM.
But I digress, as I have written about US impending fiscal storm elsewhere; and here, I really wanted to sort myself out by determining how high-off-the-hog I could be living if I had taken out 2nd and 3rd mortgages or maxed out my credit cards instead of paying as I go!? Is there really any honor in living debt free and just having to pay off the usual enforcers and guards while a prisoner of the grid?? I want to go back to that carefree childhood — I want to believe Jesus\’ story about the birds…
I believe our childhood ends when we get our first paycheck! Up until that day, we live a life measured by holidays and seasons — never having to worry about whether we would have the money to do this or that (and certainly never having to worry about the quality of anyone else\’s holiday: like we do when we are married with children!) Even the poor seem to make the most of holidays (shades of the Cratchit family).
The Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter etc. were the markers that our midwest neighborhood gang lived for; and we filled the time in between these occasions with seasonal sports: making time seemingly stand still.
But each Summer the neighborhood gang faces changed — as younger figures joined and older figures left — invariably leaving when they got their first summer jobs! Time stopped standing still for them — their childhood had ended — their clocks started ticking with work and worry. The years that were once time-frozen days of care-free happiness, now saw people working on once sacred holidays.
So too, did my carefree days end with those first paychecks. The money I earned lifeguarding; working the college kitchen; and, contract grading — began to define my life: Increasing my earning power became my penultimate goal. (One can tell that my entree into the work force was delayed as long as possible — so I remained a \’kid\’ longer than most.)
I don\’t quite live from paycheck-to-paycheck like 72% of Americans reportedly do — but I DO worry what might happen if the money flow gets cut off. I wonder what percentage of the aforementioned 72% worry at all…they may be utilizing my French acquaintance\’s formula. If in fact, when \”the shit hits the fan\” (like Dr. Paul predicts) I\’ll probably start in the same spot THEY do when our lifestyles are forced to change.
So all of my fussing and fretting and the years of budget worries that have eclipsed my childhood into today will just amount to the proverbial hill-of-beans (which will probably be all I will be able to afford to eat!)! And if the folks who have lived champagne lifestyles on beer budgets somehow manage to have weenies with their beans while I don\’t, I would certainly like to reset this game of Life…