by Ken Crawford

Individual Debt

Patience is a virtue that I have always struggled with. Impatience is an old habit of mine. Sometimes I became

frustrated with individuals who were slow to understand me, even though I should have seen things from their

perspective, because often I dealt with someone sighing when they were frustrated with me if I was not quick to

understand them.

Debt is a type of impatience, and also a quick fix for irresponsible behaviour. Take for example, the buying of a

house: We could save money for a house by working a job, and after working for some given time period, where

you have saved up the money, you can buy the house. However, one could start saving, lets just say 500 dollars a

month. Maybe it works fine for 6 months, and then you start only putting away 400 a month, and maybe a few

months later, its only 300 dollars a month. Perhaps a partial reason the saving slows, is that we see the saving

account growing, so we do not worry about the goal of saving a certain amount of money each month, so we

begin to over spend. We eventually notice that we are not saving much and we become impatient. We would

rather go to a bank and take out a loan because we are impatient with the waiting and want instant satisfaction. I

know this issue can be complex. Perhaps house prices are rising, and the rate which you are saving is not growing

at the same rate the house prices are growing. Perhaps inflation is occurring, and the prices of everyday goods are

not allowing you to save as much, or inflation is out pacing your savings rate.

One may argue, that if the prices of houses are rising faster than you can save, then take a second job, or take out a

loan, and perhaps if inflation is so bad and you can not save because the essential items are becoming more

expensive, then maybe you should move to another part of the country and become a financial ref