Spending Two When You Have One is No More Sexy

Things are changing. And changing fast. I never thought that we Indians would ape the Americans and start spending more than what we earn. But emails have started trickling in about how some guys have got into a vicious debt trap. I really hope this article in Express is an isolated story: Meltdown impact: 'It was over in five minutes

Excerpts: Jadhav has crossed the overdraft limit on his two credit cards and has run himself into a Rs-70,000 credit card debt. As he describes, “I am quite a spendthrift”. If he does not land a job in the next one month, Jadhav cannot pay his credit card dues and the card company will “come knocking to my door.”

Jadhav’s credit card debt has not found favour with his father whom he describes as his opposite because he abhors loans. “If my father has ten rupees in his pocket, he might consider spending one rupee. But I will spend two rupees if I have one rupee in my pocket,” he describes. Jadhav concedes he will have to change his squandering habits for the sake of his wife and son. His wife might soon start job scouting too.

It has only been a week since he has lost his job and Jadhav says he can manage for the next couple of weeks on his last pay cheque. If he does not find himself work within a month, Jadhav says he will go to his dad and say “zindabad” to his bank. He says how he expects his father to respond: “He will call me shameless!”

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Looks like the time has come for workshops on Personal Finance, focused towards young and new heads hoping to make better financial decisions and avoiding financial mistakes in the future

Photo credit: Debt20's photostream

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