Brain Fertilizer

In reaction to Ann's comment on this post

At one point in my life, I was $16,000 in debt. Not that much, except that my various debts added up to about $800/month in payments, and my take-home pay was about $1000/month. Rather than trying to consolidate my debt, I chose to pay between $900-950 every month to pay down the smallest debt ($500), then once that was paid down to zero, I used that money to pay down the next smallest debt...
...I probably could have chosen the one with the highest interest rate...
But it worked out pretty well. I was completely out of debt within 3 years. If the math doesn't add up, well, I did sometimes do things like buy a car for $500, buy a plane ticket, etc, after saving up a little.
That's where I learned to live within my means, and a big key to that was anytime I wanted to make a purchase, I waited. The bigger the purchase, the longer I waited. I learned this because once or twice I blew $40 or so on a big purchase that I later wished I didn't. Nearly an entire months' discretionary spending on one item I didn't even like!!! So the bigger the purchase, the longer I wait.

The first two years of paying down the debt were not fun. About the time I got to the 3rd year, I got a new roommate. He had borrowed $10,000 from his mother-in-law to start a business, and the business failed. Then he and his wife divorced. He made a few payments, then "just got tired of not having any money" (paying about $500 a month out of the same $1000 after-tax income toward his debt), and declared bankruptcy. After declaring bankruptcy, he sold the equipment from his business and was able to keep the money, as I recall (although I could be wrong). 3 months later he bought a 2-year-old Nissan Pathfinder on credit.

Now, I guess he pretty much learned his lesson. He didn't overspend, and to the best of my knowledge never came close to bankruptcy again.

But I remember being bitterly disappointed, not that I didn't declare bankruptcy, but that all my sacrifice to do the right thing earned me pretty much nothing. One loan that I had had gone into default while I was at basic training, but I made arrangements and paid back every dime and all the penalties...but due to the wording of the student loan company, for the next 5 years, every time I tried to get credit I had to answer questions about why I had applied for bankruptcy, even though it was obvious I had never declared.
Now, they *did* always extend credit, and after 7 years, I was able to buy a new car and a house...
But I still feel very keenly that it just seemed irritating and frustrating that all my sacrifice earned me nothing...He could buy new computers, computer games, a fairly-new car, CDs, new clothes, everything...and I had to be careful and plan ahead getting to eat out at McDonald's, and drove a car that the passenger side floor had rusted through so you could see the road through it.

So I have some touchy emotions about bankruptcy.

I do think I learned more from my experience. I think my experience refined my character quite a bit, and the effect on my soul/spirit/character was certainly a benefit I wasn't considering at the time. I do feel it was better to do it my way than his.

This experience is one of the reasons I'm a conservative. Hard work and self-reliance are better. He stuck it to his mother-in-law because he could. His pain was eased...but what pain did he force on her against her will?

When someone gets "help" from the government, it always comes from other people. Sure, maybe Bob Roe's welfare only costs me some fraction of a penny per year....but there are tens of thousands of "Bob Roe"s, and they are taking money from literally millions and millions of the rest of us. For no good reason, other than most of the "Bob Roe"s think work is too hard, or think 'fast food' is beneath them. They have a choice of trying to work hard (or risk themselves to overcome a disability), or just take my money. We don't have the choice whether we give it or not. ...except that enough people vote for liberals who raise taxes and increase programs that I have no choice (although I can, and do, vote to try and change it). But the idea of liberal "compassion" rings hollow when you consider the amount of force involved in conjunction with the lack of self-sacrifice demonstrated by those who vote for more welfare programs.

Bankruptcy is pretty much another form of welfare, these days. Not in all cases, obviously. There are people who do break, and bankruptcy can help them rebuild their life. I just get angry that all my expenses are greater (interest rates, prices, etc) as businesses try to recoup the losses incurred by the type of person Ann describes.