Just how does one "Starve the Beast"? First, though, lets talk about what the beast eats. His favorite meal is a big juicy credit card balance, 29% interest rate, marbled with loads of saturated fat, as in 5 figures worth of charges. The sizzle on his plate is, YOU- making the minimum payment each and every month til death do you part. This meal makes da Beast waddling fat and grotesquely happy. He can then stagger and wobble around looking in his overfilled coffer and sit around and do whatever he wants and not worry about when his next "Hungry Man" meal is going to show up. He loves You all bound up and enslaved to him, handfeeding him his minimum payment, and if you pay one second too late that is some thick icing on his triple layer double chocolate cake!
Now, I am going to tell you how to starve him, and become part of this secret little consumer revolution that is beginning to gain speed as it rolls down the mountain.
I do have to confess, that, in the past I have contributed to the beast's meals. I am NOT his favorite feeder ,though, since I have always served him ultra low carb single portion mini bites, lets call it "Amuse bouche", except he is not very AMUSED with such tiny tidbits.
You see, I bought my house with a mortgage several years ago. Back when you had to put 20% down and have the right income to debt ratio. Some of you may remember those types of mortgages. They called them Conventional Mortgages. Those kind forced you to do ridiculously impossible feats, like buying a house that had a payment that was roughly one third of your average take home pay. Then you had to save money for the down payment, and...get this, after coughing up the 20% down, you still had to have at least 3 months of living expenses left in the savings account. My GAWD, who in the world could do this now ?? But people did it back in the day, even up to the early to mid nineties. All for the simple reason so they could quit flushing the rent payments down their nasty ass landlord's low flush toilets.
This was how most everyone bought a house up until 2002 or so when Alan Greenspan unleashed the gates of liquidity and Bush declared "Everyone can own a piece of the American Dream"! Money shall rain down from the sky and every American shall be
wealthy! The successor to Mr. Greenspan and the current Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, once said he would thow money out of a helicopter if that was what it would take to keep the US economy afloat. Gee, Ben, I guess your not worried about paying ten bucks for a quart of milk are ya?
(Gosh, I wonder, what drugs these people were taking? They must have been candy coated rainbow kind!)
It's been nearly a year now, since Henry Paulson threatened Financial Armageddon if Senate and Congress did not pass the TARP bill. Banks have now gorged on our tax dollars, made it work for them big time. Now they can borrow the green they need for the day from the Fed for 0% interest and then push loans on "We the People" for usury, Guido type interest rates of say...29%. If this is not a robbery of untold magnitude, then clearly we can just sit here and keep our eyes glued to all that shiny, sparkly stuff on QVC.
So, here goes, this is a simple way to starve this monstah beast. PAY OFF those credit cards. I mean it, and I mean as quickly as possible. Once you pay them off, you can still use them, but pay your balance in full every month. The Banks hate this kind of prudency. They call these type of payers "DEADBEATS". Yes, I am not shitting you, Deadbeats. Go, wiki it and its the seventh definition. Now, isn't a deadbeat someone who stiffs the lender on their obligations? Well it used to be. But apparently the banksters have managed to make a lot of changes into the American lexicon and this is one of them. And...it used to be shameful to be in debt as well, but that's a whole other blog post.
My new favorite patriot is Ann Minch. She lives in Northern California, is a self proclaimed rocker chic and pretty much an average working mom and wife. She did a focused angry video last week calling for a debtor's revolt against theiving, fraudulent banksters when they raised her interest rate on her Bank of America Visa card. She never missed a payment, had an interest rate of 13% and was solidly employed. Suddenly, her interest rate morphed into the "Guido" range of 27% and this was without any notification whatsoever. She felt this was on the level of criminal activity and thus made the video. As she was uploading it to YouTube she prayed to God that it would go viral. God happened to be receiving messages that night and her prayer was answered, the next thing she knows, she is a YouTube star with over a quarter million hits in two days. Next thing she's fielding a ringing-off-the-hook-phone when the networks and news outlets start pestering her for interviews. And, of course, it did not take long for the head of credit card relations at BofA to tell his assistant to "get this dumb bitch on the horn immediately before this things goes ballzout viral!" He spoke to her in his nicest indoor voice and did agree to give her original interest rate back. P retty darn smart of him, it must have been difficult to remain calm when a tsunami of consumer anger was threatening to suck all of his gourmet, butter dripped, saturated fat main courses right out from that SubZero in the well stocked bank vault. You can see the video right here or go click on the link at my favorite internet addictions. Her site is called "Debtor's Revolt Now". This lady might just be our leader for this ongoing consumer revolution that seems to be picking up velocity every minute that clicks by.
The reason I told you about Ann is because she got so angry at what this big bailout bank did to her, that she decided to fight back. She fought the beast and won a victory for herself. She had decided this monster can be fine with a lowfat-sugarfree diet. Apparently, he settled for it, but we shall see if the promised paperwork confirmation of this actually arrives in her mailbox. If I were BofA I would have called quickly, too, since if Ann's video went any more viral, they would have had a serious starvation epidemic in their midst with zero chance of receiving the 7 figures annual bonus check.
BofA practically invented the Visa card back in the late 50's and were the innovators with the idea of bringing in the low FICO folks who could now buy now and pay later in easy minimum payment monthly installments. Bank of American called this division, their "cash cow" in fact! It wasn't long before all of the other financial institutions also thought it looked like their Fat Jersey milker, too.
Other ways to deny da beast is to buy stuff used and pay cash. There's an Everest size mountain range of stuff on this planet and especially in the US of Consumeramerica. We do not need any more cheap Walmart crap, puhleez. Salvation Armies, Goodwills, garage sales, charity sales, and even Kea'au Recycling Center have piles and piles of good useful treasures if you just gotta have "STUFF". Way better than the crap at Walmart. I was in Wally's yesterday and noticed how the clothing looks thinner and cheaper than usual but the prices seem to be higher, of course.
I know this idea isn't anything unique, but it works well for us.
Here's a little subversive "starving the beast" tip you can use to feed your own sub-unit beasties. You know McDonalds and their fabulous dollar menu? (This was the real reason I WAS at Wally's yesterday! ) Well, I take heavy advantage of that menu when my hungry adolescent male offspring are pestering Mom for some kaukaus for their perpetual bottomless pits. Several McD's around here even have self service drink fountains. BONUS! We only go to those McD's, order everything off the dollar menu and then have all the cornsyrupy cola juice they can handle. Oh, quit throwing you coffee cup at the computer screen, I know its disgusting, but gimme a break, they're guys and they love this stuff. I myself, hate McD's and everything it stands for, but I am over-ruled by the men folk, ugh.
So, a family of four can get a burger, fries, salad,and drink for the measly sum of $16 plus tax. Now that's a cheap night out. That and the dollar movies at Kress, and we are talking frugal nirvana! I think going the dollar menu at McD's is pretty much starving that beast since I doubt they make much of a profit on that menu. Then add in the unlimited drinks and I just don't see anything but red on the balance sheet. Besides, the cost of the more premium stuff they sell just seems ridiculous to me. I refuse to pay $7 for a big mac meal. And it does not even include a salad.
Now about mortgages and THE BEAST. I like to run figures on spread sheets, being that I am pretty much a pennypinching numbers nerd. It is truly mind boggling how much money the banks make on mortgage interest. Even the puniest interest rates means mega bucks for the banks on a thirty year fixed. Let me give you an example for a 100k loan at 5% interest. If you pay for 30 years on this loan, the amount of interest profit you will feed the bank is $93,255. If you pay for 15 years, their share is $42, 234 a substantial reduction from the thirty year loan. If you could pay this off in 90 months then their share would be a puny $20, 124. Being of the opinion that feels that Banksters are obscenely obese, I choose to pay these types of loans off as fast as possible. Is it a sacrifice? Not to me. If one can live with a McD dollar menu option and thrift store hand me downs, fresh eggs from backyard chickens, organic produce picked out of the garden, old paid for-well maintained autos, walking instead of driving, a small efficient house, one TV, one fridge, no freezer, less convenience food, and less time saving devices then paying off a mortgage as fast as humanly possible is a great joy and gift. Besides, the less we have to do with these Beasts, then the less opportunities they have to gorge on our hard earned profits, and the less chance they will enslave you in their debt traps.
You know why I think God answered Rockerchic's prayers so fast? Maybe, God hates debt slavery, too!
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