Mike
Carruthers:
When it comes to spending money, things have really changed over
the last few years.
Manisha Thakor:
In previous generations we used to compare ourselves horizontally,
literally, to the Jones' on our block. And typically we lived
around people who made a similar sort of income. They'd get
a new grill and we'd want a new grill.
Manisha Thakor
, co-author of the book On
My Own Two Feet…
Today we compare
ourselves vertically and we look to the TV shows and the magazines
to judge what we think is a reasonable lifestyle for ourselves
- and that's what's getting us into trouble.
And the results
of this always wanting "more, bigger and better" is
everywhere.
You know houses
today are almost twice the size as they were in our grandparents'
era? Do we really need that much more square footage? For years
people shared cars in families. Now everybody has to have their
own car and at increasingly younger ages. So we've had a super-sizing
of consumptive expectations across both genders.
Manisha says
you'll never achieve financial independence until you take control
of your money. And unfortunately credit cards can make that
very difficult.
Because you can
live on minimum payments for so long and not realize that you're
accruing these massive interest charges. Remember, if you charge
something to your credit card and only make the minimum monthly
payment, you've effectively doubled the price of whatever good
or service you've put on that card.
You can link
to Manisha's website
from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net
- I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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