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The title is a comment in response to my post on credit card use, including:
“I think it can be summarized, in most cases, as poor financial planning and irresponsible behavior.”
Which I stand by 100%.
As a reminder, Haughty describes an attitude of blatant superiority, arrogance, or disdain toward others, often characterized by a belief that one is inherently better, more refined, or of higher status.
I think that’s a bit unfair.
After working from age 18 to 67 (mostly dealing with people) and reaching 83 years old one tends to become a tad cynical, not accepting of the stereotypes or popular “facts.” Perhaps questioning more things. It’s fair to describe me that way.
It is also fair to say I am not the typical retire financially or the typical working American for that matter, but it wasn’t always that way.
For the first thirty years of our marriage, we were very typical. There was very little money to spare, for all practical purposes there was little or no emergency fund. My only life insurance was employer group coverage. We did have good health insurance and I knew if I stayed with my first employer (which I did), I would earn a pension.
Yes, we bought a vacation home with 10% down, but it was only possible because we rented it most of the summer and used tax deductions. We never took any significant trips until I retired. We couldn’t afford (under my definition) to take our family to Disneyworld so we didn’t, even as our children’s friends did.
We lived in modest old houses (1918 and 1929). Our children didn’t participate in costly sports activities. We drove basic cars with the lowest payment possible and drove them until they wouldn’t move.
Financial disasters, not really, but a week after we moved into our second home (built 1929), the boiler burst on the converted coal furnace and flooded the basement. That was also a week after our fourth child was born. I was still going to school three nights a week and Saturdays.
During those early years we didn’t have credit cards and when we did, we never charged more than what was payable at month end.
Can I claim financial prudence, always living within our means, always? I think so. I also acknowledge the absence of significant financial hardships along the way.
Today three of our four children are very average trying to meet all the bills, but their voluntary spending is not like ours was, especially on sports activities. Two have second jobs and given they are in their 50s with children still in grammar school, and no pensions, they may never get to retire.
I don’t see myself as superior or inherently better than others, but I do claim financial prudence from age 13 onward, I do claim ignoring the Jones’s, avoiding lifestyle creep and the ability to set financial priorities, longer term goals and to resist immediate gratification. If that makes me haughty… guilty as charged.
As I’ve said before in response to your numerous similar posts, you seem obsessed with criticizing those with excessive credit card desbt as irresponsible without ever making an attempt to understand the underlying causes of their excessive credit card debt. Do you have an opinion as to what causes “irresponsible” financial behavior?
You clearly won the lottery on intelligence and conscientiousness. Unfortunately, the same is not true for empathy. Have you ever asked yourself what aspect of your personality causes you to obsess so much about the poor financial behavior of others?
“Without ever making an attempt to understand.” How do you know that? In fact, I spend considerable time trying to learn that information and much more.
As I said before, I focus on the middle, the average and ignore, while recognizing, the outliers in far less common situations.
I in fact, have considerable empathy for anyone who faces hardship of any kind through no fault of their own, but little for those who create their own hardships.
As I posted on another comment, I live with many of those hardships every day through my family and I do what I can to help relieve them.
On the other hand, much of the criticism I receive is based on those outliers rather than the majority.
Americans in general are noted for their poor level of financial literacy, for their low savings rate, for their lifestyles often above their means.
Why would you think that does not extend to their use of credit cards?
Dick, you acknowledged in your post that not all credit card debt is the result of not being responsible, so the only thing you and I don’t agree on is the percentage of people being irresponsible. I submit that the reasons for bad behavior are often not visible. For example, a symptom of depression is often poor spending habits; until I began selling life insurance, I never realized how many people took medications for that ofttimes invisible malady. My first wife and my best friend both suffered from depression and poor spending habits, so I definitely believe the research about the disease.
You still seem unable to offer an explanation for why some people create their own hardships. What are your criteria for making the distinction between those who face hardship through no fault of their own and those who create their own hardships? For example, in which category would you put someone with slightly below average intelligence who was raised by spendthrift parents?
You might be talking about a third to half of all Americans so I say they should exercise responsibility. I learned much of my financial behavior by doing the opposite of my parents.
I think your energies would probably be better directed to contributing to programmes to improve that financial literacy e.g. for school leavers than repeatedly punching down.
Of course you might need to embrace some practical tools like budgeting etc on the way….
Of course some people will never get it, it’s the perpetual consumers of things they can’t afford and don’t strictly need that fuel the great capitalist growth engine which pads your nest egg so plumply.
I did that for nearly fifty years with limited results. I’m tired now.
Yet not too tired to repeatedly preach here on the same recurrent topics which almost certainly are not the audience to benefit from your wisdom, hence why you get challenged.
Easy solution. When you see my name as an author simply ignore the post and move on if what I say bothers you.
I am guessing that the bulk of HD readers, perhaps thousands, are not representative of the relatively few of us that a regular contributors or commentators. Thus you may be making a wrong assumption about who may benefit or not.
It only bothers me if I think that it might be perceived as the attitude that people here in general have of others. Continue punching down as you like but don’t expect a free pass on being called on it.
And since you added the coda – who exactly benefits from angry old man condemning the irresponsible? If I was in CC debt and happened on this site to research ways out of it, in what ways does you telling me “do not be irresponsible” help me?
Thank you, bbobbins, I have been thinking about this post on and off since Dick posted. Your last paragraph is good. I came to HD to learn. It is why Jonathan started the site. We need to help the young people, not shame them. Chris
Learning takes many forms and people learn in different ways, sometimes from reading others experiences, sometimes from debate on different points of view.
That’s why I wrote a section for My Money Journey
I would suggest that there is a learning experience available from the comments and criticisms made on this post. I would be pleased if one person was motivated to think about their behavior with CC debt.
t
There seems to be a variety of opinions on this topic and a few with porcupine quills. It makes me wonder if there’s a non-judgmental way to get data or if there’s any kind of study/analysis that examines how people get ‘trapped’ in cc debt. My personal experience from friends or family is that the steps often leading to cc debt result from needless spending/financial mismanagement in many cases, but again that’s just anecdotal, which doesn’t really support my opinion with data.
Had a great time with Google AI this morning. Just type in: defensive attribution theory, hardship-induced punitiveness, and the “just world” fallacy and the writings of richard quinn at humble dollar points and counterpoints. Then of course, put your own name in or other names! I read about the phenomenon back at college, apparently quite important to know during jury selection. I enjoy Mr. Quinn‘s posts quite a bit, keep it coming. Ever been selected for jury duty? Just asking..fugidaboudit, fellow New Joisian here. All the best!
I was being interviewed by the judge once as a prospective juror. He asked if I would be inclined to believe the testimony of a police officer over someone else. I said yes, the judge asked why. I said because that’s how I was raised. He dismissed me from juror duty.
I rarely win saying what I think. But I did that time.
That was a win if your objective was getting out of jury duty. Any judge would dismiss a potential juror who showed bias favoring potential witnesses.
But should I lied and said no as several others did?, 😎
Why do you assume the others lied? That’s the problem.
Dick, the opinions and assertions you stated in your original post would have been just as valid (or invalid) years ago. Adjusting for inflation and the increase in the number of card holders, over time the average credit card balance has been flat for decades. In fact the percent of consumer credit card debt as a share of disposable income is lower than it was ten and even twenty years ago. In short, the type of consumer credit behavior that you would approve of, has improved ever so slightly the last thirty years.
Despite the undeniable debt wastage you decry, I am saddened by – and “haughty” while not a bullseye hits close to the mark I’m afraid – the statement:
“I think it can be summarized, in most cases, as poor financial planning and irresponsible behavior.”
You nor I can, in all fairness, summarize “most” of the millions of cases and judge them as “irresponsible”. Consider putting down the broad brush. Rest your ever-sensitive hackles. Walk with your beloved wife along the sandy Cape beach and let thoughts of credit cards, shopping carts, and social security recede with tide into the great ocean.
With much care and respect,
Mark
Mark, I regret that I’m allowed only one up-vote for your comment.
The comment that sparked this post got over 20 likes. Rather than recount the rags to riches bio that is well known to anyone who has read HD for more than a month, you might have thought hard about why you might be overstating the case.
I am not ashamed to say I am one of the over 20 people who liked the comment Marilyn is mentioning. We need to remember that people from all walks of life come to this site. Not all of us were high earners in our careers, but there is still a place for us here to learn. Jonathan wanted to help people when he started HD and we need to remember that, I think. Chris
Dick, I’ll be honest — I’ve got very little sympathy for the large club of people who are permanently broke and in debt because they’ve spent beyond their means. My youngest daughter is a card-carrying member of that club, and for a long time so was my father-in-law, though credit where it’s due, he’s done a complete 180 over the last fifteen years and now lives debt-free and within his budget. Miracles do happen.
Where I do have genuine sympathy is for the smaller group who end up in debt through bad luck rather than bad decisions — illness, redundancy, that sort of thing. That’s real hardship, not self-inflicted.
But for the majority, who’ve got no one to blame but themselves — daughter included — I’ve learned to keep my opinions to myself and just let them get on with it. Saves my breath, saves me from sounding haughty, and honestly, it makes life a lot easier 😉
Keeping my opinions to myself is not my greatest skill.
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
I wouldn’t have used the word haughty necessarily but I would say – unable to appreciate how exceptional one’s own life experience and fortune was in relation to the vast majority of workers today And as a result always seeking to say negative things about others, often when those others are “a survey” or “the internet”
Could afford a non-working spouse for virtually all her life
Could afford 4 kids & college
Could afford a second home in a spendy area
Vastly overprovisioned for retirement
Single employer for life with well vested stock options
I submit that you have no idea how much I appreciate the life I and my wife have had over the last 58 years. Simply being able to say that is one advantage we have had.
I have made no secret that we had an absence of serious misfortune of any kind.
However, your use of “afford” makes it sound like a career of high income simply made it happen.. The high income with bonuses, stock awards, etc. didn’t happen until the last five years before I retired. And as I previously said, virtually all of that additional income was not spent, adding to our lifestyle, but invested and thus adding to our retirement security. I must admit Connie and I did not always agree on that strategy.
Affording a non-employed spouse meant we lived within our means, from 1969 forward after starting with zero when I got out of the army. We never upgraded to a nicer, more modern house with the common amenities that are demanded these days. We lived in the same house for forty years on a 50×120 lot with a kitchen many people would laugh at.
Affording to send the children to college meant we remortgaged our home twice, started a small side business and worked 12-15 hours a day, and I didn’t retire at 55 or 60 or even 65. Afford a second home- I already explained how that was done. The afford part was the $15,000 down payment.
Over provisioned retirement? Not by accident or manna from heaven. And yes, a pension is a big advantage and for many years I traded lower income compared to my peers in other companies for that advantage.
I can’t do anything about being fortunate and avoiding financial disasters, but Connie and I could have screwed it all up if we had lived our lives differently with different priorities and chased what others had or seemed to have.
And yes, I do believe many people make poor choices, set poor priorities that do screw up their futures with or without misfortune.
No, Dick, you certainly “can’t do anything about being fortunate and avoiding financial disasters,” but your blithe dismissal of those less fortunate is striking considering you have held yourself deliberately unacquainted with them. You have no interest in even conversing with anyone who has been through layoff, divorce, uninsured medical crises or other unavoidable financial catastrophes, conversations which might inform and balance your views.
Instead, you write entirely about those whose financial problems are self-inflicted, and compare them to yourself with derision. That you intentionally pass through life without awareness — let alone understanding — of the true nature of most people’s financial lives is striking for someone who writes for a site dedicated to serving its readers with helpful information.
That is quite a conclusion.
I am well aware of several people who have struggled losing their jobs, who have had to deal with divorce because a spouse decided she simply did not want to be married.
Who have and are dealing with serious illnesses and high out of pocket medical costs, who have to work two jobs to make ends meet and who work the better part of seven days a week, who now face both college costs and trying to save for retirement, one facing cancer surgery in three weeks.
I also know a family who had incredible hardships with two disabled children all their lives until one died. Those folks are now disabled themselves living P to P The woman can’t walk on her own and sits in a chair most of the day. She just finished saving for an electric scooter to get around because her husbands heart condition prevents him from pushing her wheelchair any longer.
Actually I am acquainted with them all, two are my sons and the woman is my sister.
I am also aware that in any scenario there are exceptions, extremes at both ends. I prefer to focus on the great majority who have the ability and opportunity to make things better, to plan for the future, to help themselves, but fail to do so for any number of reasons.
I bet you know many individuals at all points of the spectrum as I do.
Yet somewhere there is someone who set up exactly like you, prudent etc. But when the 4th kid was born they got made redundant and couldn’t get rehired at the same level. As a result they spent a life bouncing between unsecure jobs, working themselves into the ground with health impacts and yes, carrying cc debt for medical bills.
Reckless? Irresponsible? What was your hedge against loss of career once you made the decision to have 4 kids?
I had a neighbor who won $7 million in the lottery. Exceptions are always part of the mix.
I don’t believe this answers the posed question.
Well indeed. Many would say making a decision to have 4 kids with a single wage earner was an irresponsible decision so it would be informative to actually hear what the backup plan was. Because surely such a responsible man as Mr Quinn had a fully planned and costed contingency.
Actually no decision to have a fourth child and never a backup plan. Of course, I never planned retirement either. I did take advantage of phased retirement though.
If I had lost my job at 50, life would have been very different. Actually, I came within two months of that happening at age 62.
Not sure of the purpose of your question. No one disputes there are exceptional situations in any situation. That still doesn’t change the fact most people who get into financial binds such as credit card debt could have avoided it.
The purpose was simply to get you to reflect that the key difference between your self image as someone who was never irresponsible and someone you would badge as irresponsible was simply a matter of your own good fortune. As being truly responsible you would e.g. either have taken steps not to have such a large family or have had thought out contingency options re income.
And although it isn’t really fair to bring your family into it, unfortunately the root cause of many financial difficulties for individuals is family : divorce, caregiving, illness, disability, addiction.
By extrapolation if we get into the most fiscally responsible behaviour : it is to remain a lifelong single. But turns out not many people really want that because money definitely isn’t everything.