2025-08-14

National Financial Awareness Day 2025

Stack of Hundreds    
Early on I was a financial idiot. While I am not yet a financial genius I do fare far better than I once did. I no longer immerse myself in lines of credit which may prove impossible to pay down as I did while teaching college. It's a sad notion to think that the credit card companies go out of their way to over extend you and even sadder to note how quickly so many of us will bite.

The notion of debt relief is fraught with pitfalls. I have been told by multiple financial advisors that this is an adverse solution and so I avoided it entirely.

Didn't need a debt management plan. I knew how much I owed and who it went to and why. That needed to be good enough. Settling the debt through some company struck me as being a large blemish on the credit report. Debt consolidation was viable, but I still needed to stand on my own two feet. After all, I got into the mess so it was up to me to get out of it. Bankruptcy was out because I'm not my youngest brother nor did I want to present the impression that I am the unscrupulous immoral anus he is.

So I sucked it up and paid things down myself. Doubling up on payments was the best approach for me personally. It became a game of seeing just how much more principal I could pay than interest each month. Luckily I was making bank. It meant less caviar. Less alcohol. Less carousing. I paid down massive credit card debt in about 6 years or so.

Today is National Financial Awareness Day.

It is a reminder that knowledge is power and being out of debt is freedom. It is likely a "student" level observance because many of them are just as stupid as I was in the financial arena. Where you are and where you're going is relevant to each and every one of us with big plans.

Now that I'm in retirement I need to avoid those stupid moves which drained my resources early on. My late stepfather took me aside and gave me a stern talking to regarding just where I was headed — and this was at the end of the ordeal. Whether you're a student or an old codger like me you need to exercise a certain awareness about finances and steer clear of those pitfalls into which I fell so many times during a younger day.

Happy National Financial Awareness Day to you !