Monday, July 2, 2007

Sir! What Debt? Sir!


Have you seen that commercial for the tide stain stick? In case you have missed it. Here is the jest of the commercial. A group of soldiers fall into line, for an inspection. As the Sargent goes down the line, he notices a ketchup stain on one of the soldiers shirts. As the Sargent begins to holler about the stain, the soldier is secretly handed a tide stain stick. He then quickly treats the stain. The commercial ends with the Sargent walking back to the soldier and asking what he has to say for himself. The young private responds, "Sir! What stain? Sir!" The Sargent shocked, looks down, and not seeing the stain anymore asks, "OH, what did they send me? A Houdini?"

So what does this have to do with personal finance? Wouldn't it be nice, if there was a product on the market, that made getting rid of debt as easy as the stain stick gets rid of a stain?

There is a reason it isn't that easy. Actually several reasons. One is the lenders don't want it to be that easy. As the Bible says, "The borrower is SLAVE to the lender." The other and more important reason, is if it was that easy to just eliminate our debt, we would not learn good money management skills.

That is what we must learn, and it is not an easy lesson to learn. As I have mentioned often in this blog, I struggle with this. The principle is so basic and so simple, yet so hard for our society to grasp. I may not be rich yet, but I understand this basic principle to become rich, I need to spend less then I make.

Obviously, to do this, one of the things I MUST do is stop borrowing and stop paying interest. You cannot borrow your way out of debt. No! As Dave Ramsey's grandma is so famous for saying, "There is only one place to go, when you're broke. To work!" So if you're looking for a simple way to get out of debt. It is simple, in theory, but it isn't going to be quick. It is going to be a lot of hard work!


And that's my view, what do you think?

1 comment:

  1. Haha! If such a product eliminating credit card debt existed, a universal happiness would go down on the mankind.. But the price of the product, I'm afraid, would be just the same as your balance!! ))

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