Cash-only lifestyle
I wish Christians would lead the charge in returning to this type of lifestyle:
In 2005, [Brough] took drastic measures. She decided to sell her $350,000 home, pay off all the family’s debt, and move to lower-cost Cary, N.C., where she was able to buy a house for $164,000 house in cash.
Since then it’s been cash and debit cards only for Brough, 50, who has no debt of any kind.
How does she do it? She buys secondhand furniture and electronics, gets her husband’s medicines from Canada at cut rates, has a $10,000 emergency fund and thinks long and hard before she opens up her wallet.
“When you use cash you think about what your needs are because you’re paying a big chunk of money at once,” she said.
This concept is probably a foreign one to many Americans who are addicted to buying almost everything on credit. But believe it or not, it is possible to survive and thrive without depending on credit cards. In fact, Brough is part of a small but growing debt-free movement, some joining because of personal or economic hardships, and others just looking to simplify their lives.
It’s all about economic empowerment. “Times are tough and people want to take control of their finances,” says Denis Cauvier, a financial psychologist and co-author of “The ABCs of Making Money.”
“When people look at what’s happening, all the ups and down of the stock market, housing prices, people getting laid off, they get a sense they are out of control,” Cauvier says.
As a result, “we’re seeing a huge rise in the use of cash and debit cards,” he says. “It’s a positive way of gaining self control.”
The Scriptures warn repeatedly of the dangers of money – and one of the greatest dangers is that money and possessions quickly control you. This appears to be even more true of “plastic” money:
“The thing that hit me the hardest was that plastic has no emotion to it. Whip it out, use it, done,” he says. “Cash is harder to part with.”
Businesses have worked endlessly to make it easier and easier for a customer to part with his money. Contrary to what the commercials say, this has not been for our convenience; it has been so that we spend more. It is considerably harder to spend $100 in cash than it is to spend $100 on a credit card, yet it takes just as long to work to earn that amount of money. I think more and more people should consider the “radical” step of cutting up their credit cards, especially if they are controlled by them (and if someone has thousands of dollars of credit card debt, I think it is clear that the card, not the person, is in control).
H/t: Ad Orientem
