Tifferzzz
Resident Badass
Watching JMaxed Out, they quoted the national deficit for the U.S. at just under 8 trillion dollars, and I remembered an article that my mom had hanging on her fridge. This is dated from 1999. The deficit then was 4.9 trillion. To give you an idea of how much one trillion is:
If you were to count to a trillion using $1 bills, 24 hours a day, it would take 32 years. Or to put it differently:
With 1 trillion dollars you could buy:
1. $100,000 home for every family in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Iowa.
AND
2. Put a $10,000 car in every garage or every one of those homes
AND
3. There would be enough left over to build (10) Million Dollar libraries and (10) million dollar hospitals for 250 cities in those states. There would still be enough left over to build (10) million dollar schools for 500 communities. In addition there would still be enough left over to put in the bank and from the interest alone pay 10,000 nurses and teachers, plus give a $5,000 bonus to every family in those states.
Now times that by eight, and that's how in debt the U.S. is. Every family account for $90,000 and counting of that debt. Here's something that'll knock your socks off - the government spends more money paying interest on that debt than it does on homeland security, education, and health care combined.
Need another reason to pay off your credit card debt and start paying with cash? How about the fact that credit card feed have risen 160% in the past 5 years and the fact that credit card companies want you to be late on your debt so badly that they'll hold your checks and even shred your payments so that you get charged late payments and over-the-limit fees. That's where they make all of their money. They want you to make your minimum payment because they know that you will be paying on that debt forever.
Guess who proposed the change of the new bankruptcy laws that mandated that it be harder to file?
MBNA (A large credit card company/bank)
Why? Because the credit card companies can 'flip' the date on your credit report renewing the debt and keep collecting on you until the day that you die. Bankruptcy stops them from doing that. Guess what? It's a hell of a lot harder to file now.
Here's what you do: Pick out one card, the one with the least balance and take every available portion of your income that's left over (for entertainment.) Pay that card off. Close it. Then roll that monthly payment in addition to your other card's payment until that's paid off. EX:
Target: $1500 balance, $15/month.
Visa: $5000 balance, $50/month
Mastercard: $8,000 balance $75/month
Pay off target, then take that $15 and roll it into visa. So now you're paying at minimum $65/month until it's paid off. Then roll it into MC so now you're paying $140/month. You'll not only save years...literally years of paying, but you're taking a step in the right direction. Once those are paid off, close them. Pay in cash. If you don't have the money....you can't buy it. The secret to getting rich is not owing other people money. Remember that.
Chew on that. It's delicious.
If you were to count to a trillion using $1 bills, 24 hours a day, it would take 32 years. Or to put it differently:
With 1 trillion dollars you could buy:
1. $100,000 home for every family in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Iowa.
AND
2. Put a $10,000 car in every garage or every one of those homes
AND
3. There would be enough left over to build (10) Million Dollar libraries and (10) million dollar hospitals for 250 cities in those states. There would still be enough left over to build (10) million dollar schools for 500 communities. In addition there would still be enough left over to put in the bank and from the interest alone pay 10,000 nurses and teachers, plus give a $5,000 bonus to every family in those states.
Now times that by eight, and that's how in debt the U.S. is. Every family account for $90,000 and counting of that debt. Here's something that'll knock your socks off - the government spends more money paying interest on that debt than it does on homeland security, education, and health care combined.
Need another reason to pay off your credit card debt and start paying with cash? How about the fact that credit card feed have risen 160% in the past 5 years and the fact that credit card companies want you to be late on your debt so badly that they'll hold your checks and even shred your payments so that you get charged late payments and over-the-limit fees. That's where they make all of their money. They want you to make your minimum payment because they know that you will be paying on that debt forever.
Guess who proposed the change of the new bankruptcy laws that mandated that it be harder to file?
MBNA (A large credit card company/bank)
Why? Because the credit card companies can 'flip' the date on your credit report renewing the debt and keep collecting on you until the day that you die. Bankruptcy stops them from doing that. Guess what? It's a hell of a lot harder to file now.
Here's what you do: Pick out one card, the one with the least balance and take every available portion of your income that's left over (for entertainment.) Pay that card off. Close it. Then roll that monthly payment in addition to your other card's payment until that's paid off. EX:
Target: $1500 balance, $15/month.
Visa: $5000 balance, $50/month
Mastercard: $8,000 balance $75/month
Pay off target, then take that $15 and roll it into visa. So now you're paying at minimum $65/month until it's paid off. Then roll it into MC so now you're paying $140/month. You'll not only save years...literally years of paying, but you're taking a step in the right direction. Once those are paid off, close them. Pay in cash. If you don't have the money....you can't buy it. The secret to getting rich is not owing other people money. Remember that.
Chew on that. It's delicious.
