I am not against buying a new car, because the repair costs are much less and with children, safety must come first. It also helps your credit. I think the key to car-ownership is to 1) Buy a car you can afford and mind the gas tank (A sports SUV is a great alternative to a larger SUV). 2) Maintain your car well. Get regular oil changes, and be gentle on the breaks at the lights. Get regular check-ups and get a good set of new tires. 3) Make sure you trade in your car before the miles get too high, and you will not get any trade-in value.

I am from Europe, and I think that the deregulation and capitalism here is to blame. We have to throw in a bit of social regulation to make sure big business isn’t taking over and incomes are regulated. It is too bad there is no proper Christian Democratic party here that people of faith would feel comfortable voting for.

Also, many expensive clothes are bought by teens. (who should be saving for college, BTW) My son is a little better than average because he does save. But as a senior in HS, he works 10-12 hrs per week and gets about $70-80. HE does save about $40-45 per week but spends the rest of his money on whatever.

He also learned an important lesson in grocery shopping this week. HE wanted (needed) his favorite french vanilla cream and I needed syrup. HE spent nearly $8 on two things!!! He said, but it was only $.50 more than the store brand. I said I buy 100 things a week — I don’t feed our family of 7 as a SAHM by paying $.50 more for each item. (“I get it mom, I get it!”) Yesterday when we had a similar scenario he came home with the store brands and commented that he’d learned.

WE need to be vigilant in our teaching at all ages.

Oh that’s right, people with over extended credit card who want to feel movie star rich, who pretend a $45 t-shirt will make them something they already are not, they buy those clothes. And you and I pay for them.

I was amazed, last year in the US, at how materialistic everyone was. I’d forgotten. I couldn’t play the game but I’ll admit it was very tempting. It’s nice to be back overseas, where people deal with issues of starvation not of getting all new couch cushions to match the season. It seems more real, somehow.

I like your bail out plan a lot, but I doubt it’ll happen. Too bad. I heard our economy is currently based on credit, on borrowing and lending, not on any tangible thing like export/import. How can such an economy survive? I personally think the whole country’s going down, but I’ve always been a bit pessimistic.

This is a big fuss now and it will get a lot of publicity for a while, but soon something else will come along to push it out of people’s minds and we’ll be back to business as usual and the whole time all these companies will be raking in big bucks in any way they can.

I think the press is the worst of it. There are so many newspapers and news shows and people are addicted to them, even though they rarely print the truth. I swear that recessions are started by newspapers. They pick a slow newsday and start “hinting” that things are not what they should be in the financial world. Then another news service picks up on it and reports it as NEWS and before you know it, people start getting nervous and stop spending and before you know it, we are back in a recession cycle. That’s why I’ve stopped watching the news and stopped reading the paper. I still get all the news I need from the Internet and I can pick and choose my sources.

Other than that, I can just be smart about my own money and teach my children the same.