Fine69
Senior Member
Both my F350 and Ranger are paid in full!
It sounds like most of you have low or no payments, which is a good thing.
Paying the high fuel bills is a lot better when you do not have payments or the payments are low. We have to believe that things will get better in the near future.
Part of the problem is that folks leveraged themselves to the very Nth degree. Some have 100% loans on their homes, credit cards maxed, two or three car payments and then add an RV payment in there. We buy all this "stuff" ($50K trucks, $30K RV's) and then expect to be able to operate them for 70 or 80 dollars worth of fuel per month not taking into account that the price of fuel is not FIXED, it is a publicly traded (worldwide) commodity that goes up and goes down with market fluctuations and economic conditions.
We as Americans havent even begun to experience hard times. Max, you are a bit older and may have a few brief memories (or your parents and relatives related them first hand to you) of the great depression. Those my friends were hard times, soup lines, unfathomable unemployment, bankruptcies, stock market collapse, total economic meltdown in the US.
We dont have a clue today, not a clue.
I grew up in the upper midwest during the early 80's. I remember 16% and 18% interest rates, I remember the S&L failures and the farm foreclosures. We operated our farm on machinery purchased at the foreclosure auction sales. I will never forget the looks on the faces of the owners being forclosed upon. My grandfather operated that very farm throughout the depression years. My grandmother milked the cows. I had all those lessons and stories beat into my head from a young age.You are exactly right.
That is why some of us older folks tend to hoard some things, especially food. I did not experience the hard times of the depression, but was first hand to the effects to those around me. It was drummed into my head to save, save, save. 20 years ago when we paid off the house, we made a pact not to purchase anything that we could not pay cash for. We have saved a lot of money by paying cash. "No interest payments"
Not everyone can do this, so you have to do what you have to do.
Some of my friends are two paychecks away from bankruptcy.
We as a country have gotten to used to credit cards and other ways to make it easy to purchase something without thinking how much it will cost in the long run.
If you read into what some of the guys above said, what they felt was relief to now be out of debt, and have everything paid off. To accomplish this, you take baby steps, and do one debt at a time, faithfully not purchasing anything else until all the debt is gone excluding your house payment, which normally is a 20 or 30 year loan.
As you said Stroker,,, We don't have a clue of what hard times are compared to the depression era, but what has happened in the past could happen in the future, so be prepared.
You are exactly right.
That is why some of us older folks tend to hoard some things, especially food. I did not experience the hard times of the depression, but was first hand to the effects to those around me. It was drummed into my head to save, save, save. 20 years ago when we paid off the house, we made a pact not to purchase anything that we could not pay cash for. We have saved a lot of money by paying cash. "No interest payments"
Not everyone can do this, so you have to do what you have to do.
Some of my friends are two paychecks away from bankruptcy.
We as a country have gotten to used to credit cards and other ways to make it easy to purchase something without thinking how much it will cost in the long run.
If you read into what some of the guys above said, what they felt was relief to now be out of debt, and have everything paid off. To accomplish this, you take baby steps, and do one debt at a time, faithfully not purchasing anything else until all the debt is gone excluding your house payment, which normally is a 20 or 30 year loan.
As you said Stroker,,, We don't have a clue of what hard times are compared to the depression era, but what has happened in the past could happen in the future, so be prepared.