Herman School of Business
How Has Your Spending Changed?
Rather than talking about either the “Big World” economy or even your “Little World” economy…let’s focus on you as an individual in your “Personal World” economy. By now the outside circumstances have caused a reaction in your personal life.
Did you forego buying a car? Have you given up on buying a new house? Is your Christmas shopping being impinged? Either you are still contributing to the problem by tossing money you don’t have out the window, or my belief is that you have joined the army of smarter beings by only spending what you really can afford. As hard as it may feel to you…holding back on those excess purchases…thanks for being part of the solution.
One of the first things people will recognize after they fight through the addiction of wasting money is that they can still walk upright and the world doesn’t come to an end. What I hear from people is a wonderful thing. Because by and large there are tens of millions of people who don’t quite feel very well right now…but their actions are going to cure their personal problem and return sanity to America.
Yes, the marketplace will change. It needed to change. In your lifetime there are countless examples of a business you used that went away…restaurants, fast food joints, clothing stores and even the places you shop for groceries have all morphed into something else. What scares us now is that it is GM, Chrysler and Ford that might disappear. It is the huge home builders who were choking us with McMansions where people could have 5,000 square feet to lose each other instead of the more affordable 2,500 square feet that would be enough. “Bling” is going out the window these days…great…you could educate millions of children with what has been wasted on Bling.
Every time I hear of another personal story where they are cutting back on spending it pleases me to no end. Another soldier fighting the War on Wasteful Spending to help us return to Spending Sanity. Those who lose their homes must ask themselves if they should have ever purchased it in the first place. Those who leveraged themselves betting on the world continuing to overspend, the world continuing to use credit they could never pay off, those who want a bail out…you will pay a higher price right now…and you should. Swallow your medicine please so we can all move forward and return to fiscal sanity. I’ll take a 3 to 5 percent gain on the value of my home annually instead of doubling in five years. I’ll take no gifts at Christmas this year…unless my kids baked them, created them by hand, or had the grandchildren draw them for me.
What’s your personal story? And don’t you secretly feel better inside knowing you have started to get better. When the ones who are really hooked on wasting money and keeping things they never should have purchased are forced to face reality…and that is coming soon…America will return to sanity and we will all be better.
- Posted: 16 December 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Business success
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