Comments on: Be a patriot: spend more, save less

By: unmotivated yet

unmotivated yet — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:45:18 +0000

Thanks for reading and commenting. Though I would like to say I was joking, I have too much anger against self-righteous people who advice and not follow. I try to constantly examining myself against hypocrisy but people who spout advice publicly must be held accountable for their words. Otherwise anybody gets away with speaking anything. I am constantly amazed at how easily a public person can turn round and speak against the something they advocated before. Free country yes but not irresponsible country I hope……

By: kimc

kimc — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:37:07 +0000

@unmotivated,
I don’t know if you meant for this to be funny, but I can’t help smile at the look Mr. Wessel would be wearing if somebody asked him that question. Wouldn’t you love to see him squirm when his own theories are applied like that?

By: unmotivated yet

unmotivated yet — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:59:22 +0000

How much Mr. Wessel has stashed away himself?Anybody bother to ask him that? The best way to stop these kind of people is to take their own arguments and justifications to their own door step. This stops them dead…………..

By: Carey

Carey — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:34:47 +0000

Ok, I went to college too…just 4 years mind you but took my share of economics. I believe the rule of a free market society is to let it work itself out…cuz it will. It just may take longer than we like. But this gov’t borrowing more and more money is just hurting our kids, even if it appears like it helps us in the short term.

Now I think I’ll go have a piece of chocolate cake and forget the fact that it’s not healthy and doesn’t go with my long term goals…isn’t that the American way?

All said…still say…God Bless America!

By: Steph

Steph — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:06:44 +0000

I think the issue is less how much we spend as it is where we chose to spend it. I admit that I am not as frugal as most here, and one of those reasons is balancing ideology with finance.

I think the bigger problem is that we’ve become obsessed with having more stuff, borrowing to buy it and buying cheap, outsourced stuff so we could have more. I think the question we need to be asking now is where do we want our dollars to go?

Personally, I’d rather spend twice as much to get a skirt that is sewn by a local craftsperson who makes a living wage from her work. Is that particularly frugal? Probably not (though I am starting to do a lot of bartering in this arena, which is definitely frugal and fun!) but it also means making the choice to own less things.

We should be borrowing less, but we should also be looking at our priorities when we decide where and how to spend the money we do have.

By: caryn verell

caryn verell — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:43:22 +0000

mr. weasel is spouting pure “BS”. and because of people like him, the recovery of our national economy could take a very long time…personally, i think that every polititian and big spender that voted yes to the bailouts and the omnibus spending bill should all be hung for treason! Now that I have vented, let me remind all frugalites that “we are not alone” as Glen Beck would say. there are more of us than there are of them and it is up to us to make ourselves heard.

By: KimC

KimC — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:30:14 +0000

Meredith,
We’re doing something very similar. We don’t have a lot to spend, but we have friends with less than us. They are self-employed doing odd jobs, and we have a few jobs for them. We *could* save some money and do the work ourselves, but hiring them helps both our family and our friends.

Annie,
I like the way you think! I’m feeling a bit better about Mr. Weasel’s opinion now, although I do hope he doesn’t land a position in Obama’s cabinet any time soon.

By: Ashley P

Ashley P — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:39:47 +0000

I’m biting my tongue… owww!

Okay, so I’m 100% behind you. After all, aren’t we supposed to learn from history? What happened after the GD? We all started saving EVERYTHING!! (Yes, I was there when we cleaned out my great-grandparents house. They had butter containers and used foil stored in every nook and cranny!) We spent little, scrimped a LOT, and put every last penny into savings so if the financial world crashed again, at least we’d be able to buy bread!

My husband loves to watch these guys on TV making idiots of themselves, and while I will laugh at them once in a great while, I can’t believe that they are seriously telling us to go deeper in debt, that it will solve all of our problems! ARRRGG!!! Now we know how we got here in the first place… thanks super smart Wall Street dudes!

By: Annie

Annie — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:01:47 +0000

I do think we’re each entitled to our opinion and I can see the longterm ramifications for less spending more saving.
So, the only logical conclusion should be the Mr. Weasel should continue spending, the rest of us can continue saving. I hope he he deep pockets – he needs to make up for all of us frugal free-thinkers.

By: Sissie Sue

Sissie Sue — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:42:42 +0000

The situation our country is in now has so many culprits: corporate leaders who sent so many jobs overseas (and undercut our own country’s manufacturing capabilities); bankers and Wall St. thugs who manipulated the “free market” economy for maximum profit, ethics be damned; a medical industry that seeks to price itself out of most people’s reach; and people who bought, bought, bought beyond their means.

Those who are NOT to blame: responsible citizens who buy wisely and save everything else.

This economy doesn’t make me any more likely to save, but it does make me want to pull my money out of the banks. Because some days I don’t really care if they fail. The Earth won’t implode if they do fail, and we might actually see a sea change in how this country operates.

/rant