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John Machacek is the Finance director of United Way, Cass Clay and is Past Chair of the NDYP. John is a native of Langdon, ND and graduated from Minnesota State University Moorhead majoring in business with a minor in awesomeness. He is married with two children and he enjoys the simple things in life.
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2010: A Spending & Saving Odyssey
It’s 2010, a new year. From a financial perspective, let’s hope things start to look better than they were in 2009. The number of friends, family and acquaintances who lost jobs or experienced pay cuts during the past 18 months is alarming. It’s times like these when you hope people – especially those people – have a reasonable amount of debt and, ideally, an available nest egg to help in their transition.
Although controllable debt and increased saving may not be as much fun to accomplish, as we Americans have become accustomed to keeping up with the Jones, it is still important. Since big houses, big screen TVs and big vacations are now considered relatively normal, we need to realize and maintain an appropriate balance between what we can and what we can’t reasonably afford. And, although attaining material goods and services may appear to be a measure of success, we need to realize that it probably doesn’t correlate very well with a true measure of internal personal happiness.
I’m not saying we all go cold turkey and wait until we are retired to enjoy any of the finer things in life; besides, we most likely won’t be as physically able by that age. I’m just saying that maybe 2010 will be the start of a new era where we throw a little more caution to the wind in our spending and saving habits. The less we control those habits, the more money will control our lives.
Read John's previous columns
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