This is what I call a realistic Financial Plan for the Average Guy for 2011.

First of all, most of what you read in the “financial” columns, if you wish to read them, is not for the average person. Maybe you consider yourself the average person, but as you read them you’re probably saying, “who are they talking about?”.

At one time, we were all in the “average guys” category. But were we? The average guy at the time and even now, as  portrayed by the “esteemed financial columnists”, not only had a house, but a mostly funded 401(k), enough insurance, as well as significant cash left over.

Back when everything was going great, when  we needed cash we went to the “Giant ATM in the Sky”- in other words, we refinanced our home. Now we can’t refinance our home because we owe more that the house is worth and our debt to income is too high! As a matter of fact, some people are now having to pay PMI insurance where they never had to before.

But what do we do now, when we find out we don’t have all those things? We use our “Financial Plan for 2011”:

1. 1. Pay your mortgage and the household bills you need to give your family it’s basic elements, first. The way most people get into trouble with their mortgage is by paying all the other bills and leaving their mortgage till last; “I can catch up later”.
2. Once you miss your first mortgage payment, you are at the pleasure of your Lender.
3. From the first day past the due day, they are adding late charges. If you get into the second month of arrears, your Lender may may call in the legal department. From that day forward, you are sunk. You can literally never catch up.
4. In order to “catch up”, you must pay your current payment, plus all arrears, plus legal fees and late payments. Your $1200, one month late, can turn into $3000-3600 real fast.

What I do daily is look at people’s bank statements and financial data.  People come to me to help them out of financial messes.  What I see is totally sickening.    People are losing their houses to foreclosure, and:

1. Pay more than the minimum on their credit card bills
2. All I see on their bank statements is “Chipotle, Don Pedro, Taco Bell, Burger King . . .
3. Hundreds to thousands minutes of text messages on both the adults’ and children’s’ cell phone bills

Let’s talk about the credit card bill first.   I believe that what we’re seeing in the Financial columns has a lot to do with this mindset.  “You have to keep a good credit score”, is what they say.  What good is a great credit card score is you’re living in your car?  Pay your mortgage and let the credit card bill go . Or at the very least pay a minimum on the credit cards.  If you lose your house or go into foreclosure your credit scores go in the basement anyway!

The reason I mentioned the restaurants is the fact that after all the bills are added up, a preponderance of of the “expenses” are in fluff!

Whatever happened to talking to people in person?  Or talking on the phone.  The teenagers love chatting, but does that mean you have to?  You’re not a teen anymore.  Try chatting on Facebook.  That can be fun and its free!

If you’re going to:

1. Go on a budget – budgets don’t usually contain frivolous things such as eating in restaurants or texting.  Cook at home, buy Hamburger Helper and cook at home, get frozen entrees and cook at home.  Even if you only do that twice a week, the amount of money you save is unbelievable.  Ditto what I said above on texting.
2. Convince your Lender that you want a loan modification, for example.  Lenders look at your bank statements when you apply for a loan modification.  Their logic is that if they’re going to give you something, you have to give them something in return.  A lot of times loan modifications can be denied because of  “frivolous ” spending.  If your bank statement shows you don’t care enough to pay your mortgage but you pay your credit card ahead, what are the Lenders to think?  To a Lender, eating out all the time and texting is really, really frivolous. If you are trying to get your mortgage modified, at least give them a modified budget which doesn’t include all the habits of the wealthy.  Give them a modified budget and show them you want to stay in your house.

Enough for today.  Just get your priorities in life straightened out – not for me, but for yourself.

Now they’re back and asking fora whole bunch more money. And from what’s in the media none of them are solvent yet and it looks like they could still file for bankruptcy. I can’t see where any of them got better.

I do know one thing though, it was all done “For the children“. And for their children and probably their children after that. At least the taxes they’ll pay, to pay back the all the “money out of nowhere”, the government spent.

That’s our Change, and we Hope there’ s a way other than taxes on the back of our children, to pay for it all.

As the title asks and I’ll ask again, “What business got better”, that we spent hundreds of billions on?

The Red Cross and the Salvation Army, (my personsl favorite), pitched in and gave them all clothing and shelter.

Here’s the best part, in three flavors:

1. They had so many donations of toys, clothing in two days, etc., the apartment dwellers asked people to stop the donations ’cause they didn’t know what to do with them!
2. An anonymous donor gave One Million dollars to the displaced dwellers -  each of the renters got a check yesterday or today for over &17,000.
3. This is also unbelievable – the building owners gave them all their December rent and their their cleaning deposit.  This is one evil owner who accepted their responsibility and stepped up to the plate – without being asked.

Maybe this would have happened anyway.  but I think that this is the true spirit of Christmas.

George

Political has to do with politics – all of politics, all political parties.  However, the term “politically incorrect” seems to only fit in situations where someone is offended, mostly liberals.  So maybe the term should be “Liberally Incorrect”!

Christmas has been around for a lot longer than the recent politicians. Over 2000 years as a matter of fact.  It seems that we shouldn’t be saying “Merry Christmas”, though even though that is the holiday

“Happy Holidays” seems to be the right greeting now.  What holiday are we celebrating?  CHRISTMAS.

So say it – “MERRY CHRISTMAS”, “MERRY CHRISTMAS”,”MERRY CHRISTMAS”.

Those are the right words – Get over it   Are you offended?  You know what – I don’t care!!!  I’M OFFENDED that people will stop me from saying “Merry Christmas”.  The US Constitution guarantees me the right to say those words.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS”