PF KICK!!!


I am currently on a Personal Finance Kick right now! The "kick/obsession" began out of my desire to get out of credit card debt. I would read MSN Money articles all the time and try to figure out new ways to get out of debt. I wanted to be smart with my money, but up until this point in my life I have made one too many impulse buys.
One day about a month ago I decided to play tennis with a boyfriend of one of my wife's friends, whom I have been acquaintances with for about two years. We had always told each other that we should play tennis, and so two years later we played tennis. I was asking about his hobbies and he said that he was into blogging and personal finance. I said "Oh that's sweet! I am trying to get into blogging myself," (obviously not doing a very good job at that) and then asked what his blog address was. He said "Punch Debt in the Face."
I immediately went home and began reading these random, but informative blogs about personal finance. My curiosity went crazy and I began to ask "Ninja" (what he calls himself in his blog) all sorts of questions. He inquired about my current financial situation and then figured out a game plan. My biggest lesson so far has been, Why do we think that Debt is suppose to be a part of life? When did we learn to spend more than we have? It almost like we are trained for instant gratification and trained to go into credit card debt.
Once I am out of this current debt that I am in, I never want to go into debt again, besides a home mortgage, and I want to learn to save money and pay cash for things. Buying stuff becomes more meaningful when you save up for them or set a goal with your spouse.
So what about you, what sort of lies have you bought into about money? Were you taught about debt growing up, or is debt just something that you assume everyone was suppose to have?

2 comments:

David Henry said...

Good stuff Matt. I'll check out punch debt in the face now. Alyssa probably told you about the book she is reading now called Mortgage Free. We've been discussing some very similar things to what you are talking about. I've barely scratched the surface, but if you look into the history of debt in America, it would surprise a lot of people that personal debt was just not that common for people unitl very recently and mortgages were hard to get and not normal either. Interesting stuff...

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the PF obsession my man :)

p.s. tennis soon?

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