Spending habits: Do as I say, not as I do
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Crushing mortgage payments, rising foreclosures and living off home equity lines of credit and plastic are all examples of how Americans have let their spending get out of hand, but most bad habits start small. An Associated Press story at latimes.com reports on one effort to start chipping away at this nation’s overspending epidemic by forming better habits.
A new site from the National Endowment for Financial Education, a nonprofit that aims to help people learn about handling money, Spendster.org is intended to give people a place where they can admit their poor spending habits as a step toward developing better ones.... Spendster.org offers users a chance to calculate how much they spent on their own junk. But more importantly they can compare how much it would have cost if they put it on a credit card, versus how much they could have earned if the money was invested or put in a savings account.
The video confessions of people who wasted their hard-earned bucks (or ran up credit card balances) on multiple appliances, duplicate household items and unneeded you-name-it were depressing to say the least. It’s not a big mindset leap from there to signing up for adjustable rate mortgages that reset into the stratosphere. But beyond a website designed to entertain and educate, perhaps what’s happening in housing and the economy today will serve as a real-life experience to educate the next generation about more prudent spending habits. Maybe?
-- Lauren Beale
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