"There'll be Pay Day, Some Day!" Billy Sunday

If you sow the wind you eventually will reap the whirlwind

When you're young you seem invinceable.  If there is no one to tell you no! or wait! every little thing can be covered by plastic!

J. Reuben Clark's comment on interest:  If you understand it, you harness it to work for you...if you don't, you pay it, to your detriment.

J. Reuben Clark Jr.

"Interest [on debt] never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours. ... Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you"  LDS Conference Report, Apr. 1938:103.

Einstein said the most important invention in the 20th century was compound interest.

Companies, law firms, collection agencies and up until recently mortgage companies want you to spend and spend.  You want to charge it--run up the bills, especially education loans.

Budget? You don't need no stinkin' budget.  Makes WAY too much sense!

A young married couple I know split the sheets because, among other reasons, they were way too deeply in debt. Neither one of them could say no! (and neither one of them could get in the last word!)

An officiator in the Bountiful temple said it best to a long married couple who was getting sealed for time and all eternity: "How you deal with money together will be in large measure how successfully you show your love."

He started out trying to help her get every THING she wanted when she wanted it.  She wanted what she wanted when she wanted it.  They fell out of trust when she repeatedly charged large batches of cosmetics for resale to please a sibling--and let them sit while he had to pay the bill month after month.  She left the marriage to borrow several thousand from a brother in law.  He got so frustrated he rammed his fist through their bedroom door.  Together they started teaching a youth Sunday School class.  Working extra shifts on Sunday to cover mounting bills led to her refusal to let him go to their Bishop out of shame.

Looking over his shoulder he would not have bought the house that went into foreclosure for her.  He would have gently, lovingly enforced their stay in a little, affordable apartment until he had finished his education.  He would have dropped out, paid his tuition bill and saved money as he paid his tithing. Instead he has learned as she has learned to deal with loud insistent attorneys, collection agencies and judges.

The paltry thousand dollars it costs to declare bankrupcy and stop the drumbeat of pressure seems like such a small price to pay.

If the couple had loved one another t'would be sad that rampant selfishness and massive debt destroyed all that.   Fortunately for them it was just a trial marriage of two immature youngsters who still had a lot to learn!  JWC