Autumn Asks: Are you spending more to do your part in keeping the ecomony from tanking further?

Seriously. It's all over the news. The way to fix our problem is to keep spending.

Except....

The problem is that we aren't spending our own money. So many of us are so far beyond that. We are spending the banks money. We've borrowed against the next 10 years pay checks with our credit card purchases.

Does anyone else think this "keep spending or you are a BAD American and need to be hung, drawn and quartered" line is anything other than crap?

We don't even need to justify what we know in our head and heart is wrong....the government and media will do it for us. Talk about getting away with bad behavior!! We are being handed a license to live beyond our means and not think about it. It's necessary. We HAVE to do it. Except...the powers that are encouraging this are not the ones paying the bills. Nor are they going to bail you out. They can't even bail themselves out without raping us in the process.
Have we all forgotten that the borrower is the SLAVE to the lender. Yes. The slave. Try not paying off all that money you took from the credit card company and see what happens. But then, that makes you a thief also.
I'm tired of being a slave. I'm tired of watching everyone live like somebody owes them something and they don't have to save or wait for anything. Like we have a right to take someone else's money and do whatever we want with it....and then cry foul when its time for the payback.

So. I'm a bad American. We no longer spend money we don't have. We are focused on paying off our debt. We have an emergency fund for big surprises. We have set amounts of money that are put into an account for the things we know come up annually (house insurance, car tags, the dogs shots, Christmas). We have money we set aside for things we know are coming up like tires on the truck, a new mattress, summer camp, travel. But first we pay the bills. And as one gets paid off we roll that monthly amount into the next bill. And if the bills are too much, one of the other things we are funding doesn't get funded that time. It's that easy.

And it is working. And it started working quicker than I ever imagined.

We don't have to be slaves. We don't have to have the almighty high credit rating (unless you are buying a house and financing it and need a low interest rate).
Just a generation ago spending money you didn't have was seriously frowned upon. In other countries, spending money you do not have is frowned upon. How did we fall so far???? How did our nation become the most self centered people on the face of the earth??
I don't know.

I do know that spending money I don't have to shore up companies that spent money they didn't have is not the answer. Many companies are not going to survive. Many people will not survive in a manner they are accustomed to. It's going to get ugly....even if people keep overspending...because that house of cards is coming down. As it should. It's time to fix our huge overspending problem even though it is going to be devastating. It's called consequence. And the sooner we learn to work with the consequence and fix the problem (debt), the sooner our nation can move on toward recovery (and whatever that looks like).

And I'm sorry. It must be said. All those screaming that savers and those curbing their spending are killing our economy.....

It's already dead. And it should be. Let's. Fix. This.