The Former Traveling Spotlight

The tales of a "30" something gay former stand-up comic living in NYC who is searching for his soul mate or soul...which ever comes first.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Letting the Chips Fall

Money. It changes everything.

Or at least I think it does. I've never really had any, and seriously believe I'm never going to have it. I'll be that greeter in his 70's working at Wal-Mart to earn enough money to buy cat food for dinner. It's a fate I've accepted.

But what I'm finding interesting is the form of money. Cash is always king, but when you put cash in someone's hand, they are less likely to spend it. Don't believe me? Ask yourself, why do casinos use chips? Because chips psychologically don't feel or look like money, and we're more likely to keep playing with it.

Those chips aren't much different than credit cards, where people way overspend their budgets in "easy monthly payment terms". When I worked in financial aid, we used to have a seminar on the $600 pizza. Basically a college student purchases two large pizzas on his credit card and pays them off using the minimum balance. When all the interest is added up, he paid a little over $600 for the pizzas, paying them off in two years. Students never paid attention to that seminar, and later they would be in my office with significant credit card debt (the max I saw was $50 thousand...where the student had to declare bankruptcy).

At the same time, our culture is plastic driven. And the credit cards relish in the interest as they promote "tap and go" technology (because paying in cash is such a lengthy procedure. Come on...you've seen the commercial where the assembly line cafe is shut down over the slow cash transaction. Americans can't live without their credit cards.

But debit cards are a whole new breed of evil. If you don't watch carefully how much you spend, you can easily overextend yourself, sometimes to the point where you don't have enough for rent, mortgages or bills. What the hell happens then? What do you go without? Or do you just go onto Craigslist and say your hosting a "generous" man? (which happens way too often). Education is definitely part of it, as most people don't know how to budget.

I don't think that switching to a Cash society is necessary, but perhaps having the remaining accoung balance put onto a receipt would be a smart way of informing customers that they are overspending, and requiring students take budgeting classes in high school as a way of maintaining fiscal responsibility. The future children need to learn to balance their budgets...just like the government!

Patrick - 11:59 AM -

---