Saturday, January 02, 2010

From On High: "The American Dream. The American Nightmare."

I love the blunt honesty of Jerry's posts ... and today he has another that jumped off the aggregator at me. Many people are losing homes in the mortgage crisis that has gripped the country ... Jerry puts it in perspective.

I owned my first home at the age of 20, a low-priced fixer-upper rental house that needed all kinds of help. We went to work on it, pouring our small salaries into paint and siding and landscaping and updating, and lived there four years before buying a more expensive home in a much nicer neighborhood. Our hard work and patience had paid off ... we had equity in the fixer-upper that we poured into the new home ... and we never looked back.

Even with moves to another state and back again, we never bought beyond our means. In fact, we were encouraged by others that we could afford much more ... but we didn't want to stretch ourselves since I was a stay-at-home mom and we lived on one income.

Bottom line: you are responsible for your own decisions. Jerry's post shows what happens otherwise.

No comments: