The Fulcrum and the Lever

I turn the key and unlock the deadbolt. It's been a long day's work. I have been working three jobs for weeks now. I come through the door of my tiny one-bedroom house and stare at the desk, piled high with debris: old junk mail, magazines, and a few bills. I keep thinking maybe on my day off I'll clean this mess up, balance my check book and pay my bills. "But what's the use?" I think to myself, "I have $210 left on my credit card, that'll get me through another week."

Independence is what I wanted and that's what I got. I have a car, a house, furniture, stocked cupboards, and plenty of I-can-do-what-I-want free will. I was working a lot, and sure was doling out a lot of dough, yet I felt atrophy kicking in. When I was dying to leave my parents house, I didn't think that it would be like this. Going and doing whatever I wanted all the time was not something I did. Life cost money and the reality was kicking me in the stomach every time I walked in my front door and looked at my desk. "Where is that Consumers bill? How much money is left in my checking account? Do I even have any in my savings?" These thoughts break-danced in my head often.

In a day where I see more commercials advertising credit cards, debt consolidation, and home mortgage lenders, one might find it hard to believe that debt can actually be a problem. Seeing those poor saps dance in a conga line screaming, "Freedom!" makes it that much harder to notice. With three maxed-out credit cards, and other debt in the thousands of dollars, I was one of those people screaming, "Save me!"

My life could go nowhere while I was struggling to make payments on three credit cards that I hadn't even used in two years. One of my frustrations stemmed from the fact that all of this money was going to the credit card companies for things that I don't even remember buying. With my student loan in deferment, I had only to worry about everything else. Working three jobs was not my cup of tea. The "American Dream" was killing me.

A lot of Americans are drowning in debt, with predators just waiting to add to the pile. Dave Ramsey, New York Times best selling author and financial advisor, says:

Debt is dumb. Most normal people are just plain broke because they are in debt up to their eyeballs with no hope of help. If you're in debt then you're a slave, in the sense that you do not have the freedom to use your money to help change your family tree.

According to a recent USA Today article about debt, "78 percent of Baby Boomers have mortgage debt, 59 percent have credit card debt, and 56 percent have car payments." Imagine how much you could put toward retirement if you just didn't have a stinking car payment? This is how the wealthy really build their wealth. Debt is dumb. Welcome to the real world!

He also speaks of the eternal car payment, saying, "Most people carry a car note for their entire lives, paying about $378 a month. That same amount invested from age 25 to retirement would, on average, amount to more than $4 million by age 65. You do the math." Americans do not stop and think of how all of this debt they are carrying hinders their freedom to be wealthy, safe and have peace of mind.

Darren Waggoner of Credit & Collections World says, "There's little doubt Americans 18-to-34-years-old are addicted to plastic. Many are burdened with hefty student debts, too. Struggling to keep from sinking deeper into a financial abyss, they often turn to credit cards to bail them out. They don't understand that their buy-today, pay-whenever behavior could doom them to a lifetime of debt (21)." This is yet another example of how prevalent the problem is.

Richard Sylla, writer for the Houghton Mifflin Company says, "When the national debt was created in its current form in 1791, it stood at $75 million. Nearly two centuries later in 1988, the debt stood at $2,600.8 billion.

It's amazing to think that it all started so long ago with just a little bit of borrowing. According to the Bureau of the Public Debt, the national debt as of May 20, 2005 was $7,768,431,198,132.21! We should look at this, and see it as an indicator of how it really is a slippery slope that anyone can fall down, even the smart almighty U.S. government.

Paul J. Lim and Matthew Benjamin, of U.S. News & World, inform us:

Of course, the credit card issuers, the auto lease firms, and the sub prime lenders who peddle mortgages for 105 percent of a home's value, understand the American psyche all too well. Last year, though the average cardholder already carries nine cards in his or her wallet, card companies mailed out an estimated 3.3 billion credit card solicitations. That's about 30 per household. Their goal: snag a greater share of the $3 trillion in credit lines already extended, or $30,000 a household.

What an astonishing number! A lot of Americans today barely make $30,000 per year. People that mortgage their home, especially every time they get any equity into it, rarely realize that if you cannot keep up with the payments, the lenders get to take their home away. Especially if you have those nine credit cards in your wallet, it will be hard to keep up with the payments.

While you are racing to the bank to deposit the money in your checking account that you got from a pay-day advance, to cover the check that you wrote two days ago, consider this: credit cards only make up a portion of this huge amount of debt, but often serve as a "gateway" to other debt such as car loans, home mortgages, and even payday advances.

Analysis of Potential Causes

Potential Cause: Overindulged Desire

Susan Carpenter writes, "She earned $27,000 a year but owned 300 pairs of shoes. Now the self-proclaimed 'Imelda Marcos (the world's best-known shoe collector) of Marina Del Rey' is paying for it." I can relate to this, myself having 50 pairs of black shoes alone.

Potential Cause: Lack of Self Control

Lack of self-control is the number one cause of debt, stated by Dave Ramsey in his book The Total Money Makeover: "90 percent of people in our culture buy things they cannot afford (5)." Most experts believe that overspending and the need for instant gratification are some of the main causes to this problem. "Part of the problem with our debt obsession is that, for some, it is close to an addiction (Lim)."

"Our money behavior is actually a big expression of who we are inside," notes Tahira