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Straight Story: Saving and spending
Economics editor Chris Farrell
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About the author
Christopher Farrell is economics editor of Marketplace Money, a nationally syndicated one-hour weekly personal finance show produced by American Public Media.
At last! A voice of reason in all this!
I've become increasingly dismayed at the implicit message that I as an individual have to spend money (and therefore go into debt) in order to help the national economy.
I used to think people with a lot of debt just spent too much on things they didn't need, but in the last few years my income has gone down and expenses I can't avoid (like health care) have increased. When my car has to be repaired (because I can't afford to buy a new one!), I end up with debt because there is simply no room in the budget for $500 worth of car repairs in a 3 month period.
Thanks.
re: Can we afford Obama's economic plan to spend money on infrastraction and jobs? Scott, of course not. It's much better to give more to the Wall Street gang that got us into this mess, so they can give themselves bonuses and throw themselves parties. These people should be tarred, feathered, and run out of town.
My family took an oath of sorts 6 days ago to stop spending money for two weeks. Starting the day before the elections, I knew some might say that we were being unpatriotic by stopping our spending , but I agree with Chris that now is the time to tighten our belts, pay down debt, and be conservative. We are testing ourselves right now - just how conservative can we be for 2 weeks? And can we continue beyond that? I will be listening to advice from experts like Chris Farrell and MarketPlace to see how we cam improve our financial situation. I'm blogging about it now at http://www.planetperspectives.blogspot.com. Thanks for the good advice that our responsibility is to protect our household, not to prop up the economy by spending at putting our personal financial situation at risk!
