From: ericm@microunity.com (Eric Murray)
Subject: Re: Fear of Debt
Organization: MicroUnity Systems Engineering, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 04:06:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.205341.2862@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> rperkins@astro.as.arizona.edu (Rachel J. Perkins) writes:
>In article <1992Dec30.192426.11268@netcom.com> despair@netcom.com (Scott Hanson) writes:
>>
>>I had the misfortune of being adopted by people in their late 40's. 
>>One of these effects is due to my parents experiences in the Great Depression.
>>I am not certain how much of this to believe, but things were undeniably
>>difficult.  As a result, they never live outside their means and are 
>>preoccupied with their future economic solvency.  This has been passed on
>>to myself, making things less pleasant but more realistic financially.
>>
>>How many other debt free people were influenced by this?  I imagine there
>>are a few strong types who had irresponsible pareents and actively chose
>>a different way of managing money.

Yep, that's me.

My parents fell for every get-rich-quick scheme ever invented.
All sorts of multi-level marketing scams, watchband stands, the
stock market, even an SAT preparation class thingie, ten years
before that became popular.  They wound up going bankrupt right as
I started college, which actually turned out well- they helped me
some the first two years, then I had my father keep declaring me
as a dependent.  He carried over his the loss against his income
as a 7-11 clerk (hey, you have to get back into the food chain
_somewhere_) which meant that he was filing tax statements with
negative income.  The way the student-aid rules were written, I
could get a bunch of aid.  Since this was back in the early eighties
before student aid got cut so badly, and I went to an inexpensive
school in an economically depressed area, I did pretty well for
the next five years.

Not so well however, as a friend who was smart, female, and hispanic.  
She sent money back home each month.  I still had to take out some student
loans, and I quit school a couple time to work and make some more
money.  I also had a friend who worked in the student aid office who
had a major crush on me, and she'd warn me when my file was coming
up for review and tell me what sort of documentation I'd need.



My parent's incredibly poor business sense has made me very cautious
when it comes to small business, especially when there's investments
involved.  I had a consulting company for a while, but that doesn't
require anything more than a $10 business license and a typewriter
and you can borrow the typewriter.

I've always had an aversion to spending large amounts of money,
well since I had large amounts to spend.  I think about it for a
while, try to figure out if I can do without whatever it is I'm
contemplating buying.  If I buy it, I feel queasy.  The sick feeling
doesn't have anything to do with the amount of money; I don't know
what it is.  If I ever save enough to buy a house, I'm sure I'll
have a major Fear Explosion when I sign the papers.




--
            Eric Murray                 ericm@microunity.com
In this game, the winner is also the loser, and the judge's decisions are final
Newsgroups: alt.angst