Now is the time to consider personal financial responsibility
By Brandon Irby
Truth be told, Americans don’t know very much about how credit scores and ratings work according to a survey by the Consumer Federation of America and VantageScore Solutions.
Here’s a hint: Credit cards aren’t “magic money.”
Simply put, when it comes to personal finance and responsibility our culture is full of lazy habits, backwards thinking and a sense of entitlement. Case in point, debt is one of the most aggressively marketed products in our society today and this includes student loans.
According to Consumer Affairs, the average college student graduates with roughly $4,100 in credit card debt, and $24,000 in student loans. Most college students find themselves weighed down with excessive debt ironically by making uneducated decisions.
Earlier this year personal finance writer, Zac Bissonnette, broke news based on a survey conducted at the University of Houston Law Center which found that 29% of students under the age of 21 had used student loan proceeds as part of the income they reported on credit card applications.
Does that make any sense? How is owing money proof that you can pay credit-card obligations?
Obviously college students should avoid credit card debt. More importantly college students should have a firm understanding that tens of thousands of dollars in debt is not equivalent to having income.
Unfortunately this is a problem of principle. Not only are college students making poor decisions, millions of Americans have adopted a mindset and lifestyle that is addicted to spending. Broadly speaking we buy stuff we don’t need with money we don’t have mostly in hopes that it brings about a sense of fulfillment. That is, until credit collectors start calling.
The good news? There’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
College is a transition into full blown adulthood. Adults devise a plan and follow it while children do what feels good. One sign of maturity is delaying pleasure which requires recognizing that there is a problem, devising a plan to correct the problem and following through. The follow through is where the struggle resides.
My advice is to make the decision early on to rage against the status quo. Take the opportunity of transition that college allows to seek wise counsel, learn how to leverage common sense and become steadfast in principles that set you up for success.
Yes, personal responsibility is a booger but the reward always outweighs the cost of doing hard work.
You’re absolutely correct, and don’t forget that businesses have ‘created’ this issue by using a barrage of marketing techniques, created specifically to infantilize the populous from the moment of conception, until the moment of death.
Personal responsibility, after decades of marketing, becomes a lot more difficult to instill in an infantile populous.
I believe that in order to bring America back to its more responsible-self, we must lobby our government to put forth regulations to protect the financial maturity of American citizens.