Finances

I guess I’m pretty lucky.

I’ve been reading all kinds of articles about how my generation is kind of screwed finance-wise. People are graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and they’re entering a not so hot job market earning not so hot salaries.

Then there’s me. I guess once again I find myself outside of what is normal. I graduated with absolutely no student loans at all. I paid for college all by my lonesome, getting financial aid only 2 of the 9 semesters I was there. Granted, I went to UWO (aka: the cheapest school in Wisconsin), but it still took a lot of work to keep afloat during those last few years. Yay for Ramen noodles. The only debt I have is my car loan which is interest-free and 1/3 of the way to being paid off. I pay my credit card off in full each month. Actually, I only use it because I earn reward points which in turn get me $50 gift cards or checks. Since I never carry a balance, I never pay any interest, so I’m actually profiting from the arrangement. It’s a sweet deal. I’m not sure how people can run up such exorbitant amounts of credit card debt. Perhaps it was just my upbringing that leads me to be in the “If you can’t pay for it in cash right now, you probably shouldn’t buy it” school. Ok, there are always exceptions. Mine would be cars and houses. Very few people can afford those things straight out. I just find it hard to be sympathetic for the idiots who go out and buy all kinds of unnecessary crap and then cry about how they’re in so much debt. I don’t understand it.

I also don’t understand how the savings rate of this country can be negative. How hard is it to put a couple hundred dollars in a savings account every once in a while? Aren’t we all supposed to have 3 or 4 months of living expenses socked away for that proverbial rainy day? I guess this could just be a result of my doomsday attitude - always anticipating that my life will completely fall apart any day now so I’d better be prepared. This does have a certain degree of validity because for a while there it seemed the second I got some money in the bank something would go wrong. Be it car-related or something else, it never failed. These days things are going better. In the past year I’ve managed to save up some dough even though I spent a whole lot more than I have in the past. I guess when you make more you can spend more. Heh. Anyway, I don’t know if I’m just that much more financially responsible or what, but I just find it kind of ridiculous. Although what can you expect from a country with such a huge deficit…