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I have worked on and off for
years as a financial journalist. And I learned as I wrote.
In fact, writing about one hot-button topic — credit card
debt — helped me to avoid that particular financial
heartbreak. I waited until I was about 30 to get my first
credit card, and I treated it warily, as though it were a
wild animal. If I played with it too long or too carelessly,
it might turn on me and attack.
I knew from my work that
Americans carry on average about $5,800 of credit card
debt. Paying off that debt with just minimum payments would
take
30 years, with about $15,000 in interest. I also learned that
we usually spend 112 percent more when we buy something with
a credit card.
Yet even knowing the
downfalls of credit cards, I still feel a rush of pleasure
when I can get what I want just by handing over a piece of
plastic. I feel immune, momentarily, from financial
constraints and any other consequences, some overt,
others more subtle.
Credit’s seduction: money
buys everything
We have become easy prey to some savvy sellers. I’m as
guilty as the next woman of scanning whatever magazines I can
get my hands on — in the grocery line, at home when bored, or
on trains and airplanes. These magazines contain images that
I think don’t harm me, but they quietly instill a desire to look glamorous, thin,
and exquisite. I start to feel a small seed of anxiety that
tells me I need to buy the things that will allow me to do
so.
I imagine in 50 years credit
cards will be like cigarettes were 50 years ago, when
doctors were prescribing them for stress. Now we know their
immense dangers. Credit card companies give their wares out
like candy — multicolored! So pretty! So fun! So easy. You
can’t afford what you want? Don’t worry.
But things costs more than
money
Enter debt. I think that each debt should contain within
itself the means to repay it, either monetarily or in spirit
and gratitude. When anyone lends us anything, then charges us
more interest than we can afford, it’s usury, and usury
drains the
soul instead of replenishing its account. It also costs
us our confidence that we can meet the next emergency, or
the next debt that we cannot avoid: a medical crisis, a
leaky roof, or a broken-down car. Or that new baby — they cost
money, too.
And with every debt we carry
ourselves, we become more inured to other debts: the
debt of our country, the callous debt of strip-mall
stores that offer "easy" credit at ruinous rates to
the poor and the debt of honor we owe our forefathers and
mothers who escaped from lands where they were unfree.
Instead, we become chained to our wallets and expensive handbags.
Avoid stealing from your
soul
I think that addressing credit card debt requires a
spiritual conversion. Often we get into debt when we’re
afraid — afraid of loneliness, boredom, grief. Once, after a
break-up, I overspent on massages and food to
the point of needing to borrow money to pay the rent. We’re up
against a serious pull — immediate gratification of deep
hurts — in the credit card world. It’s a lot for a soul to
resist. I know that in my brief forays into credit card debt
I felt as though I was jumping off the high dive straight
into anxiety. The bill would come, but I wished it wouldn’t
and somehow I thought that life would protect me, sort of
like Prince Charming.
I think the spiritual life
means
basically being present to each moment. The moment will tell
you what to do. On the other hand, debt won’t. Or, rather it
will, but it will tell you to worry, or spend more, or lie,
cheat, or steal from yourself and your retirement, house, or
vacation stash. You feel enslaved, which is a terrible
thing for an independent woman to feel. Debt intrudes on our
lives and steals something far greater than pennies a
day. It steals a bit of your soul and the sacred space
that allows us to be self-sufficient, with the Lord, the
saints, and all of God’s bounty.
Getting free
Find one spiritual practice that puts you on the road to
recovery — prayer, meditation, walking, writing, singing. Make
it something free, make it something beautiful, make it
something your own. Pay off that debt, one penny by one
penny, and watch yourself bloom. Save your credit cards for
emergencies, when they can be useful, and throw off your
burden.
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Get financial advice from
Consumer
Credit Counseling.
Reduce debt in
"7 Baby Steps"
from www.daveramsey.com.
Use this
calculator to determine how long it will take to pay
off your credit card debt.
Find out when you can
receive a
free credit report.
Check out this book:
Money Mania: Mastering the Allure of Excess, by Mark
L. Vincent, Herald Press, 2005.
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Pay yourself first. Through
prayer and meditation and friends, and cool glasses of water
when it’s hot, and walks when it’s cool, and rest when
you’re sleepy, and fresh eyes when you're weary. Pray
more. Consider each day a gift that you cannot pay enough
interest on. Don’t be afraid. Be like the lilies of the
field.
Pay cash. Buy only what you
can afford at that moment. Perhaps each purchase can be a
silent prayer of intention and gratitude, a promise to self
and to vendor that this is a relationship that furthers our
own growth. In fact, use the whole process as a metaphor — we
should only ever use what we have available at the moment,
whether it’s time, energy, or money.
Ultimately, debt doesn’t
serve us, and it makes us forget how free we really are. The
other day my husband and I took our infant son to several
worrisome doctor visits. We had time to spare between appointments and went to a small diner on a nondescript
road between car shops and chain
sandwich stores. Inside this small restaurant, a Greek woman
and a 10-year-old girl were serving two men at the counter.
The woman — the owner — didn’t accept anything but cash, she told us as we went
to sit down. She’d had bad experiences with checks, she
said, and credit cards were too much trouble. My husband and
I had about ten bucks between us, but decided to stay.
The owner came over to take
our order and looked at my son. “He is OK, he is strong,”
she said, apropos of nothing. The food was
good. We didn’t have everything we wanted, but we had
everything we needed.
Clare La Plante is
co-author of two books on the saints: Heaven Help Us:
The Worrier's Guide to the Patron Saints and Dear
Saint Anne, Send Me a Man: And Other Time-tested Prayers for
Love. She lives near Chicago with her husband and son.
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