The President has released a lot of information regarding his Stimulus Plan. As one of the lucky people with jobs, I have watched the progress of the economy closely so that I don't become one of the unfortunate ones who have lost their job in this hard time. Although I am concerned about what would happen if I found myself unemployed, I have to be realistic about the state of my finances. I am a single man with no credit cards, little tied up in loans (all from college) and I am in excellent health. If the worst were to happen, I would probably have to eat a little Mac and Cheese or some Ramen Noodles.
I have to be especially thankful to have a father that ingrained in me the idea, "If you don't have the cash for it, you don't need it." I have always felt a little left out from time to time not having the latest fashion, the coolest car or the newest gadget but I have no major debt buying those things off credit hoping to make enough to pay the interest off. As a soldier in the military and after eight years of college, I have seen too many people live exactly that way. They would get a credit card, max it out and then turn around and do it all over again until they were so in debt from the exorbitant rates that they would need to work for five years to pay off what they owed. It was sad to watch them stress and work two jobs just to make sure that they made their interest payments.
Now, with the economy severely overtaxed, there is one part of the budget that seems to rile me a little. The President said that he wanted the banks to loosen up on loaning. Isn't the rampant loaning of the credit industry what got us here in the first place? And I also hear about debt forgiveness all the time these days. It seems that many people who spent out of their means and borrowed against money they didn't have are now going to be forgiven.
I look at myself.
The car is paid. I don't have credit cards. I have also managed to place a little money in savings while lowering the amount that I owe on my loans. I have done all of this without assistance from the government. The only assistance was the education I received at the feet of my father. He taught me to believe in paper, not plastic.