Don’t Let your Cash Cow Die!

The more time I spend browsing through all of the great personal finance blogs out here, the more I think about how it’s just too bad that so many people in the U.S. (and elsewhere for that matter), are so stressed out about their finances and could really benefit from reading these blogs. It’s too bad that they don’t take any interest in personal finance. The only interest many of them have is how to squeeze a bit more cash out of their nearly dead cash cow. For most of them, there’s no more milk in the cow, and they’ve long since taken to borrowing milk from their neighbor’s cows, aka banks, credit card companies, payday loan shops etc.

What strikes me even more, is how all of this is really about choices. Some people choose to spend more money than they make. It might not be consciously spending more than they make, which is really too bad as well. In a world where money is so desperately needed to be able to make other choices, there sure are a lot of people that don’t spend much time understanding it. I save, and save and save, not to try to be rich (whatever that means), but because I want to be able to make all the other choices in life. Work? maybe. Travel? sure. Volunteer? Yep. Spend more time with my family? Absolutely. Unfortunately, you really need to have some amount of money in order to easily make these kinds of choices. If you don’t have any money, you aren’t going to have a lot of time to volunteer, or spend time with your family. You get the point.

So, if it’s about choices, why can’t people see that not making some semi-easy decisions like spending less money than you make, delaying their gratification until they can pay cash, etc, really just holds them back from making all these other choices that aren’t related to money. Some might say that they are buried too deep. Others may say that they don’t know where to start. I say, “Give yourself a slap on the face and snap out of it”. Need some inspiration? Not sure how to get started? Check out these blogs. These folks have made huge strides to taking control of their finances. You know what the common thread is on all these debt reduction blogs?

-They took the first step by deciding to make a change
-They actually acted on their decision by starting to pay down their debt
-They all state, at one point or another, that they have paid way more against their debt than they thought they could
-They are all ecstatic that the debt is gone, or almost gone
-They are all thinking about what to do next

Check them out:
http://ncnblog.blogspot.com
http://thedebtdefier.blogspot.com
http://www.debtfreerenee.com
http://singleguymoney.blogspot.com

If you find yourself in a similiar position of too much debt and not enough income to maintain your lifestyle, maybe the above sites can give you some ideas on how to begin mouth to mouth Resuscitation on your cash cow. Don’t let it just lay there dead. Breathe some life in to it so that some day you can loan some of the milk from your cow to all the other people that let their cows die.