Leave it at Home

I usually love meeting up with friends to knit.  Today was not one of those days. Little miss I am not happy with my life choices was in over drive today. When I left the house it was 28 degrees below my minimum temperature requirement of 70 degrees f.  So I wore my wool coat, the one I got when Teri was a toddler, so last century.  Well yes I did buy and expensive coat but amortized over the years the current cost per year to wear my nice coat so far is $6.66 not bad for a nice wool coat. Then again the devil is in the details.  Next was my sweater, a fancy one if I have to admit it.  Bought when the kids were in elementary school and on sale. Amortized over the years works out to $4.75 a year of wear at this point. My point to her was that I buy nice things that last, I also take care of them, they might cost more at the beginning,  it the cost per years of wear. Brings the price way down.  It went this way for yarn and other things in my life. Let’s get one thing straight right here and now. Life to to short to knit with crappy yarn.

Then it came down to how to pay for things. Here I was even called un-America.  This is going just a bit to far.  Every family handles their finances to the best of their ability. Every family is different. Every family would like a redo at some time in their lives. A blog is no place to go into this.  Suffice to say my knowledge of our country and financial well-being has been one of saving for what you need.  Not living beyond your means.  The changes came about in the 1960’s with the advent of readily available credit.  The banks learned that they could create a new revenue stream by giving people more credit then they could handle and charging high interest rates and late fees.

Then came  The Lifestyle’s of the rich and famous in I believe was the 1970’s showing what more money could buy, whether it was trips, bespoke clothing or accessories. Designers are very smart people. They created mass produced lines with a lot less detail than their bespoke lines, but enough to get the customers flocking in to buy the goods.  Travel also became cheaper and faster.  Work ethics were also changing.  Gone was the 6 day, 80 hour work week of past generations. Most jobs even introduced paid vacations.

This is were the country started changing.  Some people planned and saved. Thought it was still a good idea to live under their means.  Other people went headlong into the credit card debit way of life.  Let’s fast track forward to this century.  The people who were frugal are for the most part doing OK.  The people whom opted for the credit card to the max way of life are nearing or at retirement age. They have started wondering if they are going to be able to get out of debt before they retire.  They have visions of county run, rat invested living conditions.  They are scared and need to lash out.  I understand all of this, however I am not in the mood to be on the receiving end of someone else’s bad choices.  It’s time to pay those credit cards off no matter what you age is and save for big purchases.  You probably won’t be able to buy a car or house without a loan, but the more you put down on the big ticket items the less interest you will pay and have more money for the things you want.

Now want and needs is an entirely different conversation.  Not for now but later.