It’s that time of year when you get all of your 2008 statements in the mail telling you just how poorly your investments did last year. This week, it also fell on a day when there was no milk in the house. A major double whammy.
I was pretty convinced that we were going to come out unscathed seeing as we’re renters lucky enough to be riding debt-free. Only when we sat down to start some house buying planning did I make the unfortunate realization of just how much we lost in the stock market – money that we were banking on for a down payment. We’re basically down to where we were in 2004 which spits in the face of the painful saving we had committed ourselves to over the past four years.
America’s system makes it nearly impossible for you to live a debt-free existence, and when you try to, you wind up frankly, being screwed over by the majorities who didn’t. Case in point – do you know what a RIGAMAROLE the car dealership put us through last week when we tried to buy our car with cash? I nearly burst some internal organs with frustration. No sir, I do not want a car loan. I want to give you my money right now. Won’t you please take it?
So I think if I’ve learned anything from this it’s that the fiscal conservative always gets burned in the end. Not that I’m planning on changing my financial mindset. Quite the contrary. I’m considering becoming a full-fledged libertarian and storing all of my net worth in gold bullion underground in an Alaskan bomb shelter.
January 10th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
once I did one of those free credit check things online. I was mad when it told me that I had good credit but I could make it great if I would buy something big (like a car) on credit and show that I could make my payments regularly.
No, I will not! I have the ability to live within my means! I’m living on a graduate student stipend! I’m not going to pile debt on top of my head just to increase my credit score a few points. No thank you!
Unlike you, I do not have any investments other than a CD, so I didn’t lose anything in the recent economic whateveryouwanttocallit. One of the benefits to being a perpetual students, I guess.
January 10th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
big pa and i feel your pain. our only sadistic hope is that, years in the future, all of those credit-loving folks will come running to our door like pigs #1 and #2 pleading for rescue from the big bad wolf. at that time, living in our solid brick house – built with years of paying for everything in cash, we’ll have to determine whether to let them stew in their own juices in the pot over our fire … or just let the wolf get them. like i said, sadistic, but in this economy i say, “whatever gets you through the night.”