It was a gray day that day and as I was sipping a third cup of coffee, flicking through channels, trying to escape the doom and gloom of the fall of the economy back in September 2008, I came across Oprah. She had Suze Orman, financial counselor extraordinaire, on her show, and she was in the midst of counseling a couple who were in over their heads.

I always enjoy catching the Suze Orman segments because I know she can relate to all of us who have been over our heads in financial debt. To me, it gives her the right to get in my face and tell me off for wasting my money and being consumer-crazy! Because thats exactly who I was. However, I was appalled to learn that the couple she was currently yelling at, had 29 credit cards. 29 credit cards, I just couldn’t believe it! But what further got my attention, was when the woman in the hot seat said how angry she was at the government for letting her get into such a financial mess.

Hold on a minute…in the first place, what is anyone needing with 29 credit cards? Of course the deregulation of the American financial system has assisted people into getting into debt, but who are we kidding? We know our finances. We know what we can afford. Why would we let anyone tell us we can afford a 500, 000 dollar house on an income of 50, 000 a year? Why would we be so blinded by the ‘dream’, that we can’t even do basic math?

We as a people have no one to blame but ourselves. Everyone was greedy. Not just Wall Street. Main Street lapped up the lies as fast as they were fed, knowing full well that they couldn’t afford the food.

We let marketing strategists take us over. We didn’t even try to fight it, we just went with it. Well, the strategy worked, and now we’re paying for it…literally.

I would also like to pose this question right now to everyone who still believes they are getting a deal when they go to Walmart. Tell me how on earth we are SAVING money when we shop there? By the time I leave that place on the best of days, I have at least 3 more items than I needed, or than what was on my list. And usually, its not just a little thing, its a bigger ticket item. So what did I save in going there? I can’t just get what I need at Walmart because there are sales on everything and my consumer-crazed mind tells me;

”I need that, I must have it…and why not? It’s on sale.”

On toThe Big Three! Why is the government going to sink more money into that enterprise. Where is the wisdom in that? No one can afford to buy any cars right now. Why are we going to pay to keep those operations going when there will be no sales anyway? I know everyone is talking doom and gloom if we lose the Big Three, but guess what? We will live. Life will go on.

Here in Canada, the government let the wood industry go under and our country didn’t fall apart. Right here in Quebec, out of 350 lumber mills, only 25 are currently running and producing product. In Ontario, there is only 1 running lumber mill. Only one! Of course its hard. Of course people lost their jobs, but we will come back from this. Our economy was a fake. And if the government was thinking straight, instead of being intimidated by billion dollar companies, they would put more money into the things that every single person will use or need.

Health care, education, food. These are things that we can’t live without. We have put some of the most important things in our lives on the backburner. How could we have let this happen?

Our failing economy may be a hard pill to swallow. It may take your job, God knows, its taken 2 of ours. But it was definitely needed. Call it a wake up call. Did you get it?

I am a wife and mother of 3 children. I live life like most people; money is tight, times are tough and being a parent is not as easy as I thought it would be. BUT, life is good and I love to write about life from a different perspective. Come check out my blog for a daily dose of whatever you feel like having.

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