I haven't been keeping up like i wanted to, but i am going to try to cut and paste some articles, articles i want to remember, discuss or comment on. here's an article about learning to live without credit cards and it explores the dangers, fees, and penalties of credit cards.

i want to challenge my family to get rid of plastic although as much as possible and use gold old fashioned cash. Not debit, not checkbooks, just cash. using the envelope system and carrying cash. then, when it's gone, it's gone. what a great way to not go overbudget at the grocery store, you get to the register and have to start putting back those impulse buys. and when you go to a fair or event, when you are out of money, you are out.

Personally, i find it too easy when I am someplace like hersheypark, and I run out of cash, to just use the debit card, making it easy to overspend, impulse spend (gotta have those 30.00 hershey hats shaped like kisses, right, cause where else will you wear them and not just look ridiculous, but at the time they seem like a great idea). just having so much cash also eliminates the whining of the kids, they can each be given a certain amount of money (ideally, allowance they have saved or extra big chores they have done to earn extra money for this event) and then when it's gone, it's gone. sorry, we don't have any more.

obviously, you still need to use the checkbook for paying bills and things like that. but even writing checks can lead to overspending, who hasnt bounced a check? or wrote one out then got home and discovered they had like 10.00 for the rest of the week.

so that's my challenge to my family, to develop the habit of cash. checks for bills, tithe, stuff like that.

and a challenge to myself to not buy so much online, but to print out the order forms and then write out the check for the amount when possible. that wouldmake it easier to track and cut down the impulse buys again.

so here I am going to try to paste and cut or at least link that article:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/16/pf/without_plastic.moneymag/index.htm

I hope to discuss this with jim and watch the videos of the families interviewed. it seems so overwhelming, so daunting with over 35K in credit card debt, where to start? so it's good to see that it can be done!