Page 49 - Book1E

CHAPTER 7
The Emotional Price of Debt
“ ‘Normal’ is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for,
in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”
—Ellen Goodman (columnist)
Seems a little crazy doesn’t it? But if we have a job we love, and the monthly payments are well within our income, it can be perfectly acceptable. It’s when those payments are more than we can afford that life takes a downward turn.
Creditors attempting to collect on a debt
can make life miserable. While federal
restrictions do exist, it may seem as though
they don’t. Collectors are allowed to call
anytime between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., and
may even call you at work unless you have
notified the collector that your employer
doesn’t approve of personal calls or unless you have asked the collec- tor in writing to cease calling you. (See page 19 for more information about debt collection.)
It sounds simple—if you want to be wealthy, you have to spend less than you earn. If you spend more than you earn, you’ll always be in debt, and you’ll always be stressed about being in debt. Being stressed about debt can ruin even the best of days.
Debt, noun. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.
—Ambrose Bierce
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