Check out this article that was in a small newsletter that the 8th grade class (where my kids go to school) puts together:



There are two major problems with this - besides this poor kid's complete lack of hope:

1) "...the bank will make the farmer foreclose and take all his things"
2) "Despite the fact that many farmers are up to their eyebrows in debt, they are still happy"

Banks don't make people foreclose - people do.
People who are up to debt to their eyebrows are happy? That's the facade that the debt industry would like us all to uphold. Compare a farmer who's in debt to one who isn't. I bet the one who isn't is happier!

Labels: Debt Propaganda, Rant

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From the ever-reliable (ha!) wikipedia:

"Black Friday" was originally so named because of the heavy traffic on that day, although most contemporary uses of the term refer instead to it as the beginning of the period in which retailers are in the black (i.e., turning a profit).

If you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell ya!

Let's keep in mind that we are not to feel sorry for those poor retailers who have "not earned a profit" till this late in the year.

Let's do our best to keep ourselves in the black and not spend beyond our means in an effort to save a few bucks!

If we must shop on Black Friday, keep an eye out for good deals by using sites like http://bfads.net/. If you know of any other sites like this, leave a comment below.

Labels: Rant

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I just wanted to let everyone know that I've updated our free budget spreadsheet. Besides a couple small errors that were fixed, we've also added a "Pro-Rata" form. This form makes it easy to calculate how much to pay each creditor when minimum payments cannot be made.

Download your free budget spreadsheet today!

Labels: Budget, Financial How-To, Free, Spreadsheet

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Another example how using credit cards is supposed to help you be free!? Real freedom is when you stop using them!

Just like any rewards program, nothing in life is free. They expect to make more money off their credit card users than they pay out in these rewards - I'm not faulting them for making money... they're in business, after all. I just would rather they not make any on me or you.

Think about it for a sec... for you to make $1500 in rewards, you'd have to spend at least $50,000 using their card... that's assuming a 3% reward on ALL purchases. Frankly, it just isn't worth the trouble.



Chase Freedom? Run from it!!
Chasing the wrong freedom.

Labels: Big Plastic, Credit Cards, Debt Ads on TV

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You gotta love Dave's way of explaining things. This clip is from 10/16/2007 where he's talking about the main-stream media's reaction to the sub-prime-mortgage-meltdown.

Click the play button to listen.

Labels: Dave Ramsey, Sub-Prime Mortgages

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