Are You Living Within Your Means?

Over the last 30 years, the expansion of credit in the United States has generally been a good thing. Consumers received increased access to financing that had either been unavailable or restricted to creditworthy corporations. Living standards rose and previously unaffordable products became affordable. One example was car leasing. Leasing allowed consumers to drive previously unaffordable vehicles and replace them every 3 to 4 years with little down payment and sufficient income to pay the lease payments.

After being addicted to debt, we now have to learn to live within our means and use debt sparingly. Tightening lending standards, a weak economy and falling home prices all but ensure that consumer debt levels will increase.

We all will need to learn how to save before we purchase! We will need to pay off those debts and get debt free! We will have to clean up our credit reports as well as getting those bills paid. We will have to resist purchasing some things that we would before on easy credit. We just need to go back to what our parents did: until we had the money in the Bank, we did not buy! We are going to be forced to tighten up in all aspects of our lives, but that is not all bad.

By the way, buying property is still one of the best investments you can make with those new savings you are going to be doing!