Positive Thoughts On The Economy

If you believe every dark cloud has a silver lining, then I believe the silver lining in our fumbling economy is that it's made a lot of us reevaluate how we are spending our money. A quote in the newspaper from Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. caught my attention today. Schiff said, "Americans have been buying too much stuff, and now the epic shopping spree is over." While this wasn't an earthshaking revelation to me, it did make me recognize that I've been dwelling on the gloomy news on Wall Street and hadn't noticed the positive side of the economic downturn. The positive side is that Americans with out-of-control spending habits have been forced to bring them under control.

Believe me I am not making light of our economic troubles and the pain and suffering of others. We are bombarded in the news every day with all the sectors of the economy that are suffering. Everyone is grumbling about it! Whether they're losing their home, losing their business or can't afford to buy groceries. But don't you think things had gotten out-of-control and maybe this is just a market correction? Don't you think we all need to live within our budgets including huge corporations and even our government?

I am not an out-of-control spender, but I now think twice about where and how I'm spending my money. I think twice about whether I need something or whether my family is being wasteful. I've also taken a hard look at my investments to determine if I need to make some changes in my retirement planning.

In my mind, it's never a bad thing to step back, take a deep breath, and rethink whether I'm headed in the right direction.