Sorry for the delay responding to you, I have been wrapped up trying to prep my book for publication.

Thanks for reading the material and sharing your comment. I’m glad to have a comment on here from self-described “average folks” who are living debt free, you should be commended for that effort. One of the themes of my book is the importance of not living beyond your means and managing expenses and credit carefully.

At the same time, I do have some different perspectives on the extent of this crisis as well. It’s true that irresponsible use of credit and irresponsible lending is part of the reason for our current economic crisis, but a major factor that spread this fire was the packaging of these sub-prime mortgages into investment vehicles by so-called “Wall Street.”

One of the big themes in my book is that even with the best effort to manage your debt, bad things can happen sometimes. I know hard working people who have lost jobs or had brutal medical bills and no amount of responsible financial practices prepared them for that moment. Suddenly they found themselves in debt. So, when you find yourselves debt free, it’s not just good practices, but good fortune, that brings you that life. Those who have it have plenty to be grateful for as well as proud of.

To better prepare folks for such situations, a big part of my book talks about the importance of creating income-generating assets so that even if a job is lost, there is another source of income that can carry you.

Thanks for chiming in, there are a lot of aspects to these issues, and I enabled commenting precisely to create this type of conversation.

- Jon Reed -