To Be Blunt...

...Blunt Money is kinda stupid. It wavers between watered down stupid and obvious. I don't think I'll ever be able to wrap my head around the appetite for personal finance blogs that talk about the same obvious shit over and over again.

Oh, and calling it Blunt Money is kinda like calling this blog The Happy Other Blog Love Hour. It's not very appropriately named.

So without further adieu, I present the high quality post of Avoiding Debt by everybody's favorite pointer out of obviousness, Blunt Money. At least it isn't named after a dog.

Looking back, it seems to me it would have been a whole lot easier not to have gotten into debt in the first place, instead of getting into debt and struggling to get out.

It "seems" to you? Holy shit. It seems? Ya fucking think? Great start.

If you’ve never been in debt, I’d like to hear from you. What helped you avoid it? If you’re like me and did get into debt, what do you think would have helped?

If you've never been in any sort of debt, you are either a) an imaginary person or b) some sort of freakish personal finance God. The fact is that everybody ends up in debt at one time or an other. It just depends on what they use the debt for. Buying a house? Generally a good idea. Buying hookers for the Shamwow guy? Probably not so much. (Also, topical!)

Stop generally labeling debt as a bad thing to be avoided at all costs. Consumer debt should be avoided. But student loans or mortgages? Those are perfectly legitimate.

Here’s what I think would have helped me:

I can hardly wait!!!!!!!!!!! Here comes the good shit!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everybody shut the hell up!

Hindsight is 20/20, but I’ve always felt that debt was bad — even as a kid. I saw the stress it brought to people, so I never wanted to borrow money.

Uhhhh.... kay?

But somehow, I borrowed money anyway.

I'm sorry everybody. I thought there was some good stuff coming. Instead we get this. Go ahead and leave. I understand.

You're still here? Way to listen to directions, dumbass.

People borrow money because it's a means to get the shit that we want. It's not like it's on our to do list when we wake up in the morning.

Things to Do Today (Ranked in order of importance)
1) Go to work
2) Order a pizza for dinner
3) Get laid tonight
4) Watch the baseball game
5) Make fun of shitty blogs
6) Get into debt
7) Drive to Houston to give the finger to Dog
8) Move out of my mother's basement

I think part of the problem was that I didn’t really have a good definition of what debt actually was.

That's everybody's problem! They don't know what debt is! That's a perfectly reasonable argument.

Maybe that sounds dumb, but that’s how it was.

Maybe it sounds dumb? Maybe?!?!?! Not only is it completely fucking retarded, it's also a complete bullshit reason for getting into debt and a pretty annoying pity party.

Please continue though. I'm a big fan.

I thought that debt meant putting something on a credit card and then not paying it back right away, or borrowing money to go to college.

That's exactly what the fuck it means. It's hardly a complete definition, but it's a good start.

So I didn’t do either of those (at least not until I’d already gotten into debt using other methods.)


Somehow I didn’t realize that debt also happened when my dad went out and bought a part for my car, and told me to pay him back.

You didn't realize that if you owed someone money, then you had a debt? Unless you're borderline retarded, I don't buy that argument at all. It's pure horseshit from a post that's pretty much all horseshit.

These are the types of people who are educating a lot of people on personal finance. No wonder we're in such bad shape.

I can't handle this anymore. I swear, I'm going to have a fucking stroke.

I also didn’t really think about it that having a car payment meant being in debt. (Just look at how “having a car payment” is phrased, if you want to know why I didn’t give it much thought.)

Just for shits a giggles, I looked up the definition of a payment in that book that we look up the definitions for things in. Here's what it said:

1. The act of paying, or giving compensation; the discharge of a debt or an obligation.

I really don't think it's much of a stretch for a younger Blunt Money to be able to wrap her head around that.

I thought that making payments was just how everyone bought cars, unless they were buying a junker to fix up.

I used to think that the Ninja Turtles lived in the sewers and that my friends and I actually saw a UFO. We all "used to" think some pretty stupid shit.

Of course, I knew intellectually that I was borrowing the money. It just didn’t sink in emotionally.

I've got nothing. That's just incredibly stupid.

But now I have a much cleaner definition of debt:

Thank god! Couldn't get much worse.

Debt is when you don’t have the money to pay for something right that second, and you buy it anyway.

We had to endure that rambling bullshit post to come to that obvious conclusion?

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(Five days later)

Turns out I had a massive stroke. Sorry about that. Where were we Blunty?

One of the most important steps in getting out of debt for me was just waiting until I had the cash to buy something.

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(14 days later)

My doctor has advised me to stop this line of discussion.