Credit Card Debth

Credit Card Debth

I put on my 200$ Diesel shirt, 300$ True Religion Jeans, 175$ bright green Nike shoes, and my 65$ matching DC hat. Don’t judge me, I’m going out – it is all necessary. I splash on my Lacoste Cologne, grab a few dubs (twenty dollar bills) and make sure I have my credit cards – noice, time to go pick up some chicks at the “Thirsty Turtle.” We waltz in, of course we look the freshest, we find a group of girls – they totally dig us. “Line up the Jager bombs” I say, “ten of them.” “Eighty five dollars,” he responds. Shit… That’s when my conscience attempts to stop me, “Bro tell him that is too much, no way.” I can’t do that, I would look like an idiot, so instead of listening to my conscience, I slide into my back pocket and pull out the thing that never runs out of money, the credit card – Shizzam! “Open a tab he says?”

The funniest thing about this scenario is that we all know it is wrong, yet we all continue to repeat this type of incident, over and over and over and over and….over. Our generation has little to no respect for the idea of cost or money, we are spenders. The clothing that we glorify costs hundreds of dollars per PIECE of clothing, for what we spend on a pair of jeans and shirt we could buy an expensive suit from Macys – something just isn’t right. Yes I admit I am guilty of this too, I spend too much as well, we all do. We spend money on so many things, food, alcohol, clothes, video games, cars, car parts, car speakers, the list goes on. Everything is incredibly expensive and since no one is spending money except for our age demographic – we are targeted, and we are losing. We are all guilty of this one as well – Log into the online banking, head to checking balance, Holy Hell WTF OMG, where did my money go? I spent that much? When? Oh… on that and that and that one thing and that dinner and at the bar and this and that. Yeah, you guys all know what I am talking about – the dreaded “check the balance the night after the bar” kind of morning.

About a year ago I decided to look into a documentary about credit cards – “Maxed Out” (http://www.maxedoutmovie.com/). The movie takes you on a journey through the battered and ruined lives of those losing the battle against credit card debt. You would not believe how many people are completely overwhelmed with debt, enough to literally destroy their families and ruin their lives. They lose their homes, their cars, go into depression and more – it is one of the saddest things I have ever seen. Then you end up learning about college students that were completely unaware of the debt they were getting themselves into – a few of them ending up committing suicide. As bad as I feel for these kids, everyone is poor in college – there is no need to open a bunch of credit cards. Seriously… we see the debt in our economy today and where our parents are, and we are still dipping into those habits? If you google “average college debt” the numbers are somewhere between twenty and thirty thousand dollars as we exit our college years. There is really no need to accrue more debt through stupid spending habits with our terrible plastic counterparts.

So I propose a simple fix, something to help in all of this ridiculous spending. Leave the cards at home, take out cash and take note of the balance in your account when doing so, create a spending habit or limit. If you go to the bar, bring what you WANT to spend, not what you are willing to spend – no credit card, no “OMG morning.” If you go shopping, bring what you WANT to spend as well, then when you find that 200$ shirt that you “have to have” you just can’t buy it… sucks, but you will thank me later. Best case scenario, create a spending plan, plan out groceries, fun, clothes, etc – you wouldn’t believe how much money you can save with a simple plan of action. Credit cards can’t put you into “debth” if you just don’t use them…

Just Take the Stairs Brah

Just Take the Stairs Brah

Fourth floor, damn... *glances around* "YES! There is the elevator!" Now I can quickly elevator my way to my motorized scooter, so that I can make it to my class that is too far away to walk. Fifteen minute walk? Are you kidding me? No chance, they are lucky I drive my scooter to that class. Nice there is my scooter, start her up and I'm off, hopefully I remember where my car is later too when and if I decide to DRIVE it to the gym (Sadly, I admit... I am guilty of this one).

Hey, instead of the elevator though, I have a better idea, why don't you just take the stairs you lazy ass hole? Also, walk to class. Seriously... Anyway, I can easily say that 99% of America could use the exercise from a four flight stair walk, it isn't that difficult - but I can also say that probably close to 50% of America could REALLY use that exercise, or a lot more of that kind of exercise. We hate taking the stairs, we love taking the elevator, we hate walking anywhere, we love escalators... Where do we draw the line? When do we say - "Holy hell America... we are really, really, really (need I go on) fat and lazy and pathetic." We eat portions built for a small army of pigs, we walk distances that could only be considered exercise for a mouse, We see the gym less often than the amount of times we have seen our feet this year. If I sound angry, I am (just needed to get that off the chest). We are so amazingly lazy and like I stated in my last post, losing in the battle for schooling, yet, we are still confident and prideful and all like "Oh My God, America is Like Totally the Best and Stuff!"

I decide to venture over to the CDC website and check out the obesity map, it has been awhile since I marveled at our failure to be healthy - sure enough, most of our country falls into the 20-30% obese percentage... 20-30%! That means that if you go on three blind dates, at least one of them will be unhealthy and obese. To top it all off, it requires a Body Mass Index of over 30! to be considered obese for the CDC's graph. I am five foot ten inches tall and weigh around 160-165 pounds with a body mass index of 23ish, yet I can still admit that I am not in the shape I want to be in - I'm getting there (BMI calculator - http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/). For my BMI to reach 30, however - I must weigh 210lbs or more. 45 more pounds? WOW. That is... a lot... of weight... That means 20% of people around my height weigh 200 pounds. What about the people that weigh 185-190? they are actually pretty unhealthy too and they aren't even included in the chart. This may seem like a rant, but I really do have a point.

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html#County

Imagine this, instead of taking those short elevator trips, jog your ass up the stairs (it may not seem like much, but every little bit helps). Instead of riding your moped to class, just walk. Instead of driving to a place in walking distance, just walk or jog, or ride your bike - it will save you money on gas too. Our nation ranks number one in confidence, we are a very prideful nation, and we are very into fashion and style and looks in general. We are not in shape though, not healthy. We glamorize these models and people like "The Situation" and his abs that are strong enough to stop a meteor - yet we are not in shape as a whole, we are far from it. We watch too much T.V., we don't use the gym, we don't eat right, we just SUCK. So if you disagree, or don't care about our obesity, at least take one thing from this... Stop being so lazy all the time, if you want to have those Jersey abs - Just take the stairs brah.

(Imitation Post) 2+2 = 5? WTF America?!?

2 + 2 = 5? WTF America?!?

Recently I was watching Colbert and he presented a documentary titled “Waiting for Superman” – a movie about America’s failure in schooling. Basically this movie presents stats that are so sad and pathetic that it is hard to disagree with anything the man has to say. We are nowhere near the top in any of the schooling categories. The movie clip Colbert presented us with opens with a man on a motorcycle attempting to jump over a building and instead, hitting it face first – a metaphorical depiction of our students – confident, brave, but just plain stupid.

It was presented that we did however take first in one of the categorical statistics – confidence. When asked “if they believed they received good grades in math,” American students took first place – even though in reality we were far from perfect in that category. Then I began to think about our future… If most of our students are as dumb and falsely confident as these statistics show – we are in trouble. What happens when everyone from the generation ahead of us retires, or drives their car off of a cliff because we have run out of social security, who takes over these jobs? I think the Japanese and the Chinese are probably a good shoe in, seeing as they are killing us in every schooling category (minus confidence of course – that may have something to do with their very humble culture (something we are also very lacking in this generation)).

I mean numbers really don’t lie (granted they are real and gathered in a variance removing, high sample sized manner). It is okay though right, we are America – the country of bailouts and powerful opportunity. I think we also forget, this is the country that will outsource your job faster than it takes another American student to not go to school for another day in a row. (If you missed it, it doesn’t take any time at all to not go to school). The stat is something like every ten seconds or less another American student drops out of school. Really? High school isn’t hard… it really isn’t. But one thing we really have to look at is, if no one really told me that I had to go to class when I was say… sixteen – I’m driving, I just discovered alcohol, sex, well fun right? There is really nothing inviting about high school if we compare it to those exciting ideas. We have to realize that it isn’t these students are just stupid and are dropping out because of that, they are in a very crucial point of their life and it is vastly important to really grab their attention and force feed them the importance of school and life and their futures.

Parents, teachers, friends – these people need to really step up and save these kids. We might think “who cares if someone other kid drops out.” Well would you rather ship your car to Mexico to have your transmission fixed because we don’t have enough educated mechanics here in the United States because instead they are all just high sitting on a couch with their other drop out friends watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force? Hell no… we need the American teens to be educated and graduate so that our work forces stay localized in the United States, without their education there is truly nothing stopping outsourcing if we don’t even have enough educated workers to fill the position… If you don’t agree with me, at least think about it, go see the movie, think about what he has to say – but really understand, something has to be done because our schools and our students suck.

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/project-savior-reborn (Imitation)

Making a List - Futuristic Life Management Taken for Granted

Imagine an age, say… Medieval. Margaret exists as a servant to King Henry (one often known to kill those that upset him) - cooking, cleaning, running errands, etc. are all various aspects of her life. All of these things involve steps – heat water, add broth, add vegetables, etc. Now imagine Margaret is not a professional “Iron Chef” and she has a memory considered to be “sub-par” at best. Being as poor as she is, she cannot afford parchment and ink in order to write down her lists or recipes. She cooks the dinner in the improper order, resulting in a horrible stew worthy only of a poor starving College Student. Henry is much less than happy and immediately has Margaret sent to “the tower” in order to have her imprisoned and killed for this powerful treachery of his taste buds.

The list - Something that is VERY often taken for granted by the unorganized. Me being one of the most prevalent culprits of this crime. Imagine if Margaret had the luxury of a notepad, lined paper or a day planner – Henry would have received a much more properly prepared stew and she would have lived at least a few days longer. Obviously today we would not be killed for making dinner incorrectly, being late for a meeting or forgetting socks for the summer trip – however these things are all still important. If we sat down, took 2 minutes out of our hectic and busy lives and just wrote down “bring socks,” we would not be riddled with blisters, smelly shoes or a trip to a shady late night convenience store to buy a 17$ bag of off white socks.

I can admit that I never make lists, I never write down reminders, a sticky note, nothing. I can also admit that I forget… everything. I forget at least one thing on every trip, I always forget things for class, I even forgot to bring my wedding present to a wedding I recently attended, causing our limo to have to reroute in order to retrieve it – you can believe that none of my friends were particularly happy at my failure. Every time these things happen to me, I just think – damnit… I should have made a list. Lists are such a simple practice that can immediately shift someone from chronic forgetfulness to a more punctual, less forgetful and more organized person. The best part, it only takes a piece of paper, a pen and a few minutes of your time – in the end it could save you hours, you never know.