Home Fiscal Policy and the World Economy

There's something to be said for voluntary simplicity and frugalism. Simplicity become very trendy. Many of us spend our whole lives toiling for an elaborate structure of bills, consumables, mortgage, and vehicles, only to stare at it in perspective when hours are reduced. The question is - why do we need so much? People in some other countries don't survive on this much.

The outgrowth of the excess consumerism fills storage units, causes arguments with husbands and wives and sometimes growing or grown children. The structure of all the "I wants", "I have to haves", and the "I'm gonna die if I can't get X" comprises an unstable house of cards. There is nothing that can be guaranteed. You may have a stable job for several years or many years. The industry may give away, the hours may be cut back, you may lose your medical insurance because of the hours cutback. You could have a flat tire, put it on credit, and not be able to make the payment. The list goes on. There is always something to save for, and that is a solid savings base, so that when something happens - you can say "Whoopee! Something happened and I have the money to fix it," instead of stressing out about it. We should do these things, but we don't. It's time to.

The excess spending habits many people have cause debt because people don't rein in their spending habits or even open their bills at times, and interest upon interest upon interest -- all compounded together, one's life efforts waste away. A late fee here, a late fee there, a bounced check, a $2.00 ATM fee, all ways to pay someone else for your money - but why pay someone else for your own money?

One ends up ill at some point or another and ends up hospitalized and then all of a sudden the bills are bigger per hour than the wages ever made. How to be simpler? Can one want less? Have less aspirations? Are college degrees all they are cracked up to be? Do we have to have so many gadgets and toys? Do we really have more time now that we have so much automated equipment?

Some things are needed at the time they are needed, such as cars and medical bills but if one cannot afford to pay for a consumable item today then how can they pay for it years from now with compound interest? We need more of the old fashioned habits of saving windfalls, and the parenting that told children that when they received money, they should put part of it into their savings bank. The economy holds lessons for us, that nothing in the future is secure. Learn to live on what you have, and learn to make it grow. Consumerism makes it shrink or decline in value. Make it grow. Make working pay - for you, and not for someone else only.

The problems that each home face in balancing their budgets meld together into a bigger problem, and this is what we call the recession. Let's put our heads together and work together and trade when possible, pitch in to strengthen our economy by first looking at our own spending habits. How can we expect the economy to support us when we are overbudget so badly that we cannot support it?