In The Beginning Was Debt

  

           This is a new blog. In this blog over a period of time I would like to discuss debt and debt reduction and how I became in debt. I aim to be transparent so that others reading this may have a chance to learn from me.

                It was very simple. I spent more than I had and kept on using credit I did not have the cash to back it up.

                The way to operate is simple. Each dollar bill, each coin in the pocket or in the bank has a name on it. That principle I got from Dave Ramsey.

                Let me start.

                I was born into a well to do middle class family. It is an intact family. I don’t recall ever really lacking monetarily. Not that I could say I had everything I wanted. But my needs were met; Food, clothing, a house over my head.

            Growing up I never had a budget. I was never taught financial security.-- Never taught the value of money. Yes, I knew what it was used for-- To buy things.

I had a bank account and I would put money in it. The grade school I attended had a savings program where once a week you would bring money and have it deposited in an account for you. So I knew about saving. I had it modeled for me.

But not the value of financing and a budget. So I grew up without a concept of don’t spend more than you have. Don’t go into debt.

I was not shown how to use credit cards. The concept there is to charge now and pay later. I was never taught that you should have the money in the bank already to cover what you buy with the plastic card. This way you avoid the interest. You just have someone else’s money to use for the month which you paid back promptly.

Debt starts when you don’t pay back all the charge when due.

I realize in this day and age the stigma of debt is partly gone. It doesn’t seem to carry the badge of shame in the same way it used to. There is talk today of bad debt and good debt. Debt is debt, face it.

The way they define these terms goes something like this. Good debt is debt that ultimately will earn you money and an on-going cash flow in  Time. Bad Debt is anything that takes earning power or cash flow from you and will not replace it.

  I discuss this in a Hub pages article I wrote so just hop over to hubpages.com and look in the articles section for 4 Principles Of Debt Control.

No one had taught me how to handle credit, it cut to the short story.

So I knew that a person who worked for another earned money. You got  paid money for time. So money was a rate of exchange. Give something in return for pay.

If you really wanted to make money you somehow started your own business, so I figured.

Went to college on loans which had to be paid back. School debt.

To cut to the chase, I decided a few years back to be my own boss. I started out as a loan buyer.. a mortgage title deed purchaser. This didn’t work out.

Back to working for others.

Next I heard about an online education program that would teach, for a price, of course-no one does this for free- how to own your own business and make money enough to be your own boss. It taught affiliate marketing, PayPal, and Web 2.0.

Of course you had to be holding on to discretionary money and have good credit cards to withstand the initial cost.

Maxed out my cards. They still kept asking for more. There was a concept that you could borrow on your cards and also that you could set yourself up as a business with separate checking accounts and soon you could establish business credit.

Still needed good credit. My cards are now maxed  out. I was left with some knowledge about affiliate marketing and so I started using that.

Set up some blogs. I used the blogger program for that. I used affiliate markets such as Amazon and PayPal and  Click Bank and PayDotCom . The reason is fairly simple. I need money.

I also have set up a market. It is found at http://www.vitaminspower.com.

More will be posted as this blog grows.