Living Within Our Means

Need some more "means"? Click here.

The other day I was perusing around www.billoreilly.com in the store section and came across a bumper sticker/window decal that said, "We live within our means...please tell the President." I thought this was quite funny and SO TRUE! For the past couple of years my household has buckled down with our finances due to the country's economic condition. We started on a budget. We cut our spending. We cancelled our vacations. We attacked out debt. We started saving more. As such, for the first time we are finally living within our means...also known as spending less than the amount of income we receive. We are on Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover plan. Within three years we plan to be debt-free except for our house.

It is not just my household...all across the nation my fellow Americans are doing the exact same thing. Saving accounts across America actually have a positive balance now instead of negative and credit card balances have declined for the past 20+ months! I get it. Other people get it, so why doesn't Washington get it?

The opposite is happening in Washington. It seems almost every day that Congress approves some bill that contains billions of dollars worth of spending. I think it is ridiculous how our President tells us to be responsible in spending when he and Congress isn't...hypocrites. Hello? We are in a recession! The last thing you do in a recession is spend more and raise taxes and that's exactly what's been happening.

Our government needs to do what I've been doing. First they need to get on a budget. If the amount of expenditures are more than what's coming in you look at areas to cut spending/programs. You become an example to the nation by cutting back and not over spending yourselves and nobody wants to see you going on vacation every other weekend when millions of people still don't have jobs and are barely able to put food on the table. Last but not least the government needs to attack the national debt! Stop the insanity!