frugal living 4

FRUGAL LIVING 4

NO DEBT

When you don’t have a car or rent, you can easily live on a quarter of what everyone can.  If not less.  If you have no debt, you can afford the luxury of not working every month.  Okay, granted, almost all of us do work regularly.  I would go out of my mind without the daily anchor of work, even part time work.  So we are not talking about early retirement or being a beach bum or being a lazy slacker.  We are talking about the freedom from life altering stress for when something goes wrong.  Sudden unemployment.  Or the US economy drives into the crapper after the Russians and Chinese figure out how to destroy the PetroDollar covertly enough to avoid nuclear war ( it isn’t a question of if we lose control of global pricing in the Greenback, but when ).  Or, something as simple as your landlord selling out the place from under you ( yes, I know you are not supposed to be renting.  My point is that any number of things can jerk you around financially through no fault of your own ).  If you have debt, you are literally one paycheck away from being homeless.  Now, I’m talking about bad debt.  Good debt is not what you might think.  It certainly isn’t debt as previously sold to the gullible public- but more on that in a moment.  Bad debt is consumer debt.  Any credit card, any auto loan, hell, even a two year contract on your cell phone or wireless TV, is debt that hangs over you like a guillotine.  A mortgage is the worst of all because of its size and longevity.  Look at it this way.  Would you take a job that included a rent free dwelling?  That sounds exciting, freeing up half your income, yet if you do you are always in danger of being homeless as well as jobless.  With a mortgage, you have thirty years of being in danger of being homeless, should you miss a payment ( yes, I know it takes more than one missed payment.  Even if six were allowed, jobs are too precarious anymore to provide any kind of security in this regard ).

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Being out of debt means that losing a job is tough, but it isn’t catastrophic.  It is inconvenient rather than life changing.  Now, you might need SOME debt.  Most of us can’t cough up enough cash for land, even if it is $2,500 for a lot in West Texas ( check out Dell City, south of the New Mexico border.  Most other spots in West Texas are suicide distances from town or water ).  So you get into debt for that and make $100 a month payments.  Far better to pay cash, but two grand in debt for land is far better than two hundred grand.  If you must own a car to get to your paid off land from a job, okay.  At least if you are in debt with a vehicle, if you lose the job you just repossess the vehicle.  And are NOT homeless.  Also, if the choice is picking between paying off your land or staying in debt longer, in that case debt is going to be a necessary evil.  Far better to have a place to live the banks can’t take, or the cops can’t harass you because you own it so you are not a homeless guy trespassing, than to have no debt.  But that old standby, getting in debt to own a business?  Don’t fall for it.  Owing on the means of production used to make sense as profit paid the loan.  But anymore large corporations are driving out all the little guys.  I wouldn’t do a small business, myself, unless it was without debt ( this alone gives you a clear daily advantage financially ). 

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I don’t hate debt because I hate bankers ( although, of course I despise central bankers ).  I don’t hate debt because it is “bad”.  I hate debt because it is rarely helpful, and without it you are free to enjoy your life to a much better degree.  It is liberating.  If you must be in debt, do so carefully and constructively and  on a very small scale.  But try to avoid it completely.  It is a quality of life issue.  It is like exercising.  The discipline sucks, and there is no instant gratification, but by doing so you increase the quality of your life.  You feel better just BEING. 

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