Window Shopper

Want to finish that sentence? I don’t. Because I could come up with a bunch of things and people, most of which are or were not that brilliant in their actions. Some are simply clueless. You know who you are. There are others who are so involved in themselves that they have no idea about anything around them. I have people in mind for that too. But what I think is a real problem are those who say they want to improve their credit so they obtain a credit card, max it out and then cry because it didn’t work for them. Why? Couldn’t pay it back. Uh huh.

Also on that list would be those who had no credit but still did a dive into that morass of problems associated with the current mortgage crisis. I am not talking about those who were really great with payments. I’m talking about the people who are not interested in payments. They simply want the stuff or the mortgage so they can have the house for however long before they get caught.

Now, I do believe there are people out there who did the smart thing; wanted a house, researched, called the mortgage lenders and got a deal…at the time. Now it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next. If you find a good, reputable lender, you have a real prize. They will help you any way they can. If because of the current situation, you are in deep doodoo, the good ones will do all they are able to help you stay out of foreclosure hell. Thing is, these folks do not want the property on their hands any more than you want to lose it. So, get out there and contact your lender and see what they are able to do for you!!! Or you can sit on your can and wait for them to take it away.

People buy cars they cannot afford. The payments looked good at first but they can’t actually come up with that one payment in two months let alone one month. How about those students. The credit outfits go to the schools and get the students that just got away from home for the first time and put them into credit card hell. The student thinks it is okay to use the card but cannot pay it back on time. Ah, those wonderful interest payments keep a climbing.

Beyond that, there are those who get some credit, max it out…sort of like the credit cards and wallow in their financial problems. You can expect them to not choose to pay back all that. They did not get into it to pay it back. Thinking of some people right now. Heck, there are all sorts of folks like that. Most of the people who want credit will pay it back but the other ones are the folks who will mess it up for the rest of us who do want credit. It’s a lot harder now to get credit and that’s when you would think it’d be easier. Lenders need the people to borrow. But now, if you are even a slight credit risk, the answer is no!! Not just a no but NO!!!! Sigh. That’s the way it goes, I guess.

I had to check this out for myself but it looks to be a good plan. So many families are going under because they are paying things that will not matter and do not pay things that really do matter. People need a place to live. They need food. They need to have lights and water. They need to have heat in the winter and, frankly, these days with the weather outside looking the way it does, they need the air conditioning as well. It is no longer an option. Now it’s a necessity.

But you can do some things to help your family. These are just suggestions. They are not a rule of thumb or any type of real advice since everyone’s situation is different. These things may not have anything to do with your situation at all. But if this is good for you, then it helps.

1) Deal with credit card debt. Pay the bills on that because the interest rate is going to kill you financially if you don’t. When the things are paid off, CUT THEM UP!!! Get rid of them. They are a huge part of the problem.

2) Pay what you need to have….utility bills are top of the list there. Also, your rent or mortgage is very important. If you don’t pay that, you won’t have to worry about utility bills. As homeless people you won’t have any. If your bills or mortgage are out of control, contact those whom you owe. They will work with you. DON’T IGNORE THIS! The bills do not go away magically. Things get shut off or you become homeless. That should not be an option.

3) For those who use heating oil or propane, contact your company and see if they have an incentive plan to pay for the oil or propane in the summer time when the prices are lower. Most places have such plans. Then, in the winter when the prices are way higher, you will get the fill up for the summer rates. The risk is that the price will go down but since that is highly unlikely, it’s worth the risk.

4) You can do things around the house to lower your heating and cooling bills by simply..in winter, lowering your thermostat a couple of degrees. Believe me, you get used to it. We did. In the summer, raise the thermostat a couple of degrees. This will save you some money. That bill is going to be high enough.

5) Insulate if at all possible. That will cut down on your loss to the outside.

6) Prioritize what is needed and what is not. Be brutal if you have to. No one needs that many snacks or cokes. Do you really need that extra cell phone? Does your cable or satellite have to have all those extra channels? Stepping down one level on either of those will save you quite a bit of money. Must the family eat out all those times? Go back to home cooking. There’s a benefit. You have family meals again.

It’s getting so that people are desperate now. I understand that. But it’s time to get in there and find ways to survive all this. With families helping each other, this can work. People don’t always have to lose out.

No, utility bills aren’t new. But with today’s rising prices at the grocery store and the gas prices at the pump getting higher and higher, in many cases, it’s all a family can do to survive each month. And now the rise of the utility bills just to put the icing on the very bloated cake. It seems that with the end of winter, because of the difficulty people are having in coming up with the money for all the bills, the utility bills are starting to suffer. Lots of people have opted to stop paying the light bill and the gas bill since it’s not freezing out there anymore.

Okay, our family is one of those that lives almost completely on Social Security. Anyone who gets one of those checks or knows someone who does, knows that there is nothing rich about that. The crime is that the checks do not keep up with the continually rising prices of literally everything in sight. So, what is a family going to do when there is no food in the house, some of the people need medications that are sky high priced and the bills need to be paid? They either end up removed from their homes or they find themselves buried in bills they could not pay. Where do you draw the line? In the past, it was a rule of thumb to pay the bills especially those that were going to keep the family in lights, hot water and heat or coolness. I remember when the amounts of food coming into the house depended on how much the bills were each month.

These days, people are thinking more about making sure they have enough food instead. But the reality is that there is not enough money to go around anymore. Most of the middle income, lower and lowest income people are being touched by this incredibly bad situation. What can anyone do about this? I have no answers here. Perhaps when the greed dies down, we can survive all this. I have no idea. And the reality is that it will get worse before it gets better. Count on it.

This is not a fun subject but it is reality and it must be addressed. Since the congress appears to be doing nothing about all this, maybe if we made enough noise about it something would have to be done. What do you think about that?

EDIT NOTE: We just got our electric bill for this month. It was up considerably from last year at this time. We actually used less wattage but were charged more for it. Big shocker. The funny, as in very peculiar, thing is that the amount our bill was for this month was the largest bill we ever paid before. The largest bill we had last year was in August and was slightly lower than the one we just received. This is not going to get better any time soon.