WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO? HERE ARE SOME SOLUTIONS

Will You Survive The Coming Financial Crash 29
© 2005 Kent Daniel Bentkowski
· Live within your means!
This is a simple rule of restraint. The idea of keeping up with the Jones' family is a
mythical measure of wealth. Who cares what the Jones family owns?! All you should
be concerned with is what your own family needs, and leave the conspicuous
consumption in the nearest shopping mall trash bin!
Is there any doubt that U.S. society is built upon the consumption of expendable
nonsense? Do you really need to own a Humvee SUV, when one from a more
reasonably priced line would do just as nicely? I recently received a notice from the
local credit union that my wife belongs to, and they have announced that their new
car-loans can now be for as much as $45,000.00! Who in the hell needs a
$45,000.00 car payment?! With these factors to calculate, a $45,000.00 new-auto
loan at the currently advertised rate of 4.95% will deliver a monthly car payment
that is $848.18! This is absolutely outrageous, and while some people struggle to
make such payments, I can rest easy knowing that my own automobile is paid in
full, thus reducing my monthly liabilities by hundreds of dollars for this one matter
alone!
· Control your spending!
Here, if the reader cannot control his or her spending, all that is accomplished is
ever-greater profits to the credit-card issuing banks. If spending cannot be
controlled, then take at least some of those credit-cards and lock them away in
your safe, or in your safe-deposit box at the local bank. If an emergency does
arrive, you will have the credit that is needed to address the emergency. And, for
your own sake, limit your trips to the local ATM. Part of being fiscally responsible is
to limit unnecessary expenditures. Today, perhaps the most egregious and
completely unnecessary expense is the use of ATM machines that are NOT of the
bank at which your account resides. If you have an account at ABC Bank, and you
are out somewhere that features ATM machines of XYZ Bank, do NOT use that ATM!
You will end up with being charged multiple times, one fee for your own bank, one
more fee from the second bank, and a third fee from the ATM owner. In instances
such as this, a person taking out a quick twenty-dollars from the ATM, will find
themselves being charged up to five-dollars for taking that twenty-dollars out in
that convenient location. The general rule-of-thumb here is to use ONLY your own
bank's ATM in the lobby (or outside of) of your own bank. Here, you may not have
any fees at all. The financial sharks are quite content to bleed us dry, one dollar at
a time. The trick is to read and become knowledgeable about your own bank's ATM
rules, and then use that knowledge to avoid what is, at least as far as I am
concerned, a stupidity tax.
Still another extremely wasteful activity (and unhealthy, too) is the frequent
patronizing of fast-food restaurants. This type of food is outrageously expensive,
and is extremely unhealthy, as proven by Morgan Spurlock's great documentary
entitled Super Size Me. This was where Mr. Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's
food three times a day for an entire month. Just within the first ten days, he was
vomiting, and feeling horrible. At several times during the month, Spurlock's doctor