More Strapped Consumers Pay Credit Cards First

The following is a post sponsored by National Techmark:

In a twist that no clever banker could have predicted, consumers who are in financial distress are opting to unload their homes before their credit cards. In the past, consumers had always opted to pay their mortgages first, in an effort to save the home as a primary asset. However, with falling prices and many homeowners underwater on their mortgages, the notion that a home is an asset has been challenged to the point where many are walking away from it, recognizing it as a liability. With tighter lending restrictions, many are opting to hold on to what little credit they already have as long as they can, above all else.

Living On Credit

Unfortunately, with high job losses or reduced hours, people are very uncertain about the future. While they might be able to find a place to stay, if they lose their home, it’s unlikely they can do so with a bad credit history. It’s not just the idea that you can buy groceries on credit either that might be impacting this decision. After all, there are ways to obtain a loan with bad credit using payday loans or borrowing from friends and family. The decision to safeguard the credit score above all else may also include the understanding that credit reports are pulled for other things besides loans.

When Your Credit Matters

Credit reports are pulled when making a rental application or buying a car. Without a place to live or transportation, many people would find it difficult to remain employed. In addition, many prospective employers are also choosing to pull the credit reports to determine whether a future hire might have outstanding debts that would tempt them into embezzling at a cash sensitive establishment, like a bank. If the credit report comes back negative, it can be a valid reason for declining to hire a candidate. With credit reports being used for far more than they were originally intended, the average consumer realizes that keeping a good credit history is important to their future success in life.

What They May Not Know

While all of this is important to consider, what the average consumer has forgotten is that many states allow deficiency judgments for property that sells for less than the note on it. That means that walking away from a home doesn’t totally resolve the debt through foreclosure and these monies can be sought in court causing problems for many years to come, damaging your credit also. Defaulting on a credit card, while expensive and ruins your credit, is not secured by an asset and can be settled for a far
smaller amount than the face value. This not only saves the home, in some cases, but also eventually allows you to rebuild your credit.

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Developing Happiness – Foundations Part 2

Matthieu Ricard, a cell biologist turned Buddhist monk and also dubbed by popular media as the “happiest person in the world”, gave a presentation consistent with my thoughts in my previous post. He discusses with Google employees the ramifications of depending on the achievement of our wishes and passions to achieve happiness. “If we were to convince ourselves that satisfaction of all our whims would make us happy, the collapse of that delusion would make us doubt the very existence of happiness. If I have more than I could possibly need and I am still not happy, happiness must be impossible.”

While it is important to have possessions and goals to the extent in which one can live a comfortable life, the way in which one obtains these can negatively affect the mind. I had previously discussed my chase for the “next big thing”; first came the ranked school, then a prestigious job, and finally my pursuit of a large material possession. While all of which, were pursued to achieve a self-sustaining living, they were also justified through the belief that the achievement of these goals would bring sustaining happiness. It didn’t matter if I sacrificed my social enjoyment so long as I was able to achieve what I sought after; I believed I would achieve happiness. Evidently, I felt pure jubilation at the moment my wish was satisfied. However, in the long run, I didn’t particularly feel any happier than before. I was looking externally to achieve happiness. I have had it backwards. “Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things.”

In order to achieve inner fulfillment, we must become familiar with our minds. Like exercising a muscle, you too can achieve strength in exercising the mind. It’s not so much completing crossword puzzles or solving riddles, but building finding that inner potential through meditation.

Incidentally, he has also written a book based on the above, entitled “Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill“.

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Developing Happiness – Foundations Part 1

It’s no secret; we Americans live in an individualistic society. But what does that mean? Technically speaking, this means that we promote our individual goals above the group or society’s. You’ve probably heard the phrase, climb the corporate ladder. It doesn’t so much matter who gets thrown under, so much as in the end you are on top. We don’t like to make it seem like that is the case, but more often than not, our business relationships are built in order to improve our connections, rather than for the purpose of building a meaningful relationship. Well, maybe that is a negative overgeneralization, after all, isn’t this the land of the where “American Dreams” are realized?

The American Dream was first described as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement”. However, the American Dream has become the pursuit of material prosperity- people work more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity for their families – but have less time to enjoy their prosperity. Bigger, more, better, richer, and more powerfuler, wait the last one wasn’t a word, but hopefully you are getting my drift. Supposedly all of this will bring us a “better and richer and fuller” life.

For much of my life, I’ve been drawn into believing that fulfillment or colloquially otherwise known as happiness would come after I achieved the “American Dream”. I sacrificed the now for the future. In high school, I sacrificed a social life to ultimately attend a ranked university. It wasn’t what my heart desired, but for the sake of believing that acceptance to a ranked university would make me happy in the end, I stuck with it. Then in college, I figured a high GPA and internship experience would land me a stellar prestigious job. Only then would I truly be happy. My heart was never in the right place from the beginning. I didn’t particularly enjoy working forty hours a week and then also carrying a full-time student workload. I couldn’t find the time to maintain a social life. But, I persisted, knowing that it would pay off in the end. Finally when I graduated, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had a job lined up after I graduated. All my peers congratulated me and I thought I was on top of the world. After working for about six months full-time, I now realize that my peers don’t care so much about what firm I work at because I am never around to see them anyways. Now, I’m saving up for a house so I can live the “American Dream” and hopefully after that I’ll be happy.

What’s the problem here? My happiness is dependent on external factors, more specifically material possessions and the need to achieve status. I need to have XXXX to make me complete. If something is missing in this picture perfect world of mine, then my world crumbles. What I must do is build my inner well-being and not depend on external factors. I must change my outlook on life.

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