In Debt to Your Image
I read an article yesterday that was just ridiculous. A 19 year old casual employee is already $42,000 in debt – the result of a car, plasma TV and an overseas holiday. While the article claims to be about how Generation Y are getting their act together financially, I’m just reading another piece of tripe by News Corp.
I’ve always had an issue with image. Not personally – as mentioned I’m a fairly resilient person, so I don’t hugely care what other people think of my lifestyle or how I look, but coming from a private school I was inevitably part of a competition to look as rich as possible, regardless of where I actually stood in the pecking order. It’s amazing how some parents push their kids out of the car in Ralph Lauren and Nautica, despite their car running on three cylinders.
Only now have I realised that a large part of a lot of males’ image is tied up with cars. I personally have had a few nice cars, and while I have never consciously bought them for the image factor, now that I think about it image is the only reason for your car to look good. While nowadays it’s easy for me to let go of that dream, I find that most Australians consider others to be “successful” dependant on how new their car is. Going on that judgement, I must be fairly unsuccessful, right?
Whether it be for a car, house, TV, boat, bike, clothes, laptop or so on – are people actually getting into debt purely just to boost their self-image? In this crazy world that we are living in, I’m a firm believer that nine times out of ten they are.
I don’t profess to be exempt from this, although I consider myself to have things under control – a good friend of mine asked the other day if I was sick of not having a car, and that “surely you could afford it”. Quite honestly, we could afford another car, but we just don’t need one at the moment – it doesn’t make any sense.
Nowadays you just don’t seem to get any kudos for paying down your loans and owning things freehold. To date I have never had a loan for a car, and only ever taken out a loan to buy our property. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I wrote an article about the Minimalist Lifestyle not too long ago, and I feel that this ties in perfectly – to me, debt means stress. It is something that will always be in the back of your mind until it’s gone. Get rid of it and it will be one less thing to think about. Be content with less, and enjoy life rather than worry about it constantly.