As a life coach, I wonder what’s beneath the spending when my clients express concern about debt. Getting to that is the key to really solving it.
In today’s Game Plan column, I ask, Are You Living Within Your Means? After all, the current economic crisis has been made considerably worse by that fact that most Americans are not. True freedom means being able to say yes to that question.
You know, some people live outside their means because they have very little choice. I know I’ve run into a ton of debt just providing the basics for 5 kids because birth control just doesn’t always work, and abortion just isn’t an option. We lived in a house that cost me $18,000, so I cut expenses everywhere I possibly could!
I remarried 6 years ago, a step that should have assisted both of us with budgetting issues. Once he was done paying alimony, we started paying down debt. Unfortunately, he was recently ordered by a court to cover 60% of his adult daughter’s college expenses, and the same percentage for the next child. Their mother has full say in the choice of college – also by court order – so the first child is in a $15,000 a year college.
We do own a home, and not the $18,000 one. It is a very modest 1200 square foot, 3 bed 1 bath that cost under $50,000. We make car payments totalling less than $500 a month for 2 great-gas-mileage cars. We’re paying all our debt payments at minimum…and trying to get by eating mostly spaghetti, beans and lentils. We’ve cut every expense we can, but if one of us were laid off, we’d be toast within a couple weeks…or living on credit cards.
Really, really, for many of us, it is NOT big houses, big cars, boats, pools, gadgets. For a lot of us, it’s as basic as just keeping clothing on and food in everyone.
Thank you so much for writing. Of course not everyone in America is living beyond their means and it sounds like you fall in that category. Please accept my sincere wish for abundance and prosperity moving forward.