With the holiday shopping season behind us, we now turn our attention to a brand new year. A new year always brings us hope and inspiration. We resolve to improve many aspects of our lives. Be it better health, better relationships, or better finances, we begin the new year with great intentions. This is a chance to put the past behind us and look ahead to the future. Too often however, these resolutions are unfulfilled.
As for our resolution to improve our financial situation, this one is often blindsided when our credit card statements are opened. It is then we are hit by the cold reality of our expenditures from the previous year or years. Improvements in 2007 cannot be realized, with the debt cloud of 2006 hanging over our heads.
In that debt cloud is the vacation we enjoyed, the big-screen TV in our living room, and of course, the just completed holiday gift giving season. It all seemed harmless at the time. Just a small payment every month, and we can live like royalty today. We have been programmed to think this way. Yet when the credit card statements arrive over the next few months, many of us will find that we once again overused the plastic in our...