By Sheila Walkington
It seems like everywhere I turn these days there’s an article about debt and how much trouble we’re in.
Canadians owe $151 for every of $100 of after tax income we earn. Families are spending 10-12 times what they earn on housing. The US government is 13 trillion dollars in debt.
13 trillion dollars! That number is so hard to fathom that it almost become meaningless. Which may just be the point.
We have become so used to the idea of debt, so desensitized to the insanity of continually spending more than we earn on a personal, national and global level that we’re accepting unsustainable debt levels as “it’s just the way it is”.
In a recent Macleans article What’s the Use of Saving Money the point is made that the current low interest rates and lousy stock market returns are discouraging saving and investment. So instead we’re taking on big mortgages at low interest rates or buying stuff on credit and ignoring the trouble we’ll all be in when (not if) interest rates rise.
It’s hard not to get swept into the vortex of this collective craziness, but the only way it will stop is one person at a time doing the right thing with their money.
You may feel like you’re missing out when you decide against the trip to Europe or buying a house you can’t afford, but then again, you’re not the crazy one!
Sheila is Money Coaches Canada’s co-founder and “Debt-WHYs Diva”.
