Simple economics drives home the point that you don’t continue to spend more out for expenses than is coming in for revenue for very long.
The cupboard goes bare. Becomes empty and as Billy Preston crooned “Nothing from nothing is nothing”.
The need for the basics of food, shelter, heat, security come with a price. And in a simpler Maine small town rural living atmosphere lots of those areas can be shouldered by the individual. With a home grown not store bought approach. Big gardens that get canned and preserved, stored. Tree length logs worked on in the back yard with the cutting, splitting and stacking for the next winter. Because this winter’s heat supply is already in place. Parked and ready, waiting for snowflakes to fall from the Maine skies this winter. Put on a sweater, don’t wear a t-shirt in winter if you are cold common sense works well here.
The car, pickup in the yard, the vehicles are not brand new and shiny.
Not Mainer’s not in the habit of being loaded down with thick like prime steak payment booklets. Needing monthly attention to keep them parked in the driveway, parking lot. Away from the tow truck big hook tugging, taking them away if you don’t. In Maine what you must drive is not to fill a need to impress, to fit in. Following the crowd or wasting money on something frivolous does not happen when the basic needs of a Maine family household need attention, funding.
When you remove the store bought temporary need to buy your happiness and replace it with making your own way under your own power, simple living happens. Less or no debt, an aversion to it happens. And you lose the habit of constantly reaching for your wallet or purse. To ching ching, count out one by one the saw bucks with the various President’s portrait stamped on them. Or to automatically swipe like a chain smoker reaching for one after another from the thick stack of small plastic rectangles with the magnetic strip. Without thought, a nasty habit grows because it’s how you live when life is higher higher, faster faster. Until something snaps. Breaks. Goes bankrupt.
Raise Your Personal Spending Debt Ceiling Video.
What happens on the local level can be elevated as okay on the national level too.
Like a cancer spreading and with less thought, worry. No pit in your stomach of dread or concern. Because this is how you, the local town, county, state and country roll too. Spend like a drunken sailor. Eat, drink, be merry. Because tomorrow you shall die. Don’t give it a thought, concern as long as it happens drive through window quick.
Right now, gotta have it quick and easy. Living in the moment and not giving thought to what happens in the long term with a pattern of spending more than you make. And saving money? Why would you do that when it burns a hole in your pocket? Someone else will “save” me, catch me, rescue me. not my problem. Expecting someone else to do all that fiscal worrying, creative book keeping to keep it coming strong and easy. Free to me. Cause it’s all about me.
It used to be “if it is to be it is up to me”.
Do or die, sink or swim. And you felt satisfaction because the best sparring partner is adversity. Every one saw what you were made of when up against it. The tough get going when the going gets tough thinking kicking into gear. And you felt good about yourself when you came out the other side of a storm in life. Because you took charge, made the effort. Did whatever it took to keep your head above water. Not looking around the room and with a default mode hand extension, looked, expected someone else to carry the load. While you sat in the wagon waiting for anyone but yourself to pull the cart.
How do you feel about debt?
Are you scared of it, is it viewed like a cancer draining you that you just avoid thinking about? Or feel powerless to get your financial house in order because it’s not the norm where you live, swim among your peers? Maine kids are taught work ethic early on. To pitch in, help out and earn their keep as responsible members of a family not flush with cash. But rich in love, everything that matters that is real, important and not man made artificial.
Maine, simple approach to life, taking the need for lots of money right out of the equation.
Replacing it with more self reliance, pulling yourself up by the boot straps. Cash spending only, long term goals, have a serious talk with the guy or gal you brush your teeth with each morning at the bathroom sink. To examine emotional spending, that is a form of retail therapy that does not last. Leads to more and more like any addiction to meet unmet needs. Good or bad.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, Real Estate Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com