Today’s entry was sparked by a conversation Lindsay and I had on the way home from work this afternoon.  She mentioned to me she had an interesting conversation with her boss where he told her he was broke and cannot pay her right away.  Now Lindsay works for three financial advisors (yeah funny how one of them is broke and they tell you what to do with your money??) and all three of them pay her individually under contract so it’s not like your regular paid every two weeks auto deposit type deal.  Either way she’s never had a problem until now. 

He basically called her into his office and let her know that he’s broke for a few reasons.  First his property taxes came out, and some other bills, plus he just got back from a three week vacation to China.  With his line of work if he stops working then so does the money.  He does not have any residual income that keeps paying him for the efforts he did in the past.  Instead he is paid for performance and when your away from your business for three weeks there is no performance which equates to no money.  Again pretty funny coming from a financial advisor eh?  This is a guy who YOU invest money with?  Someone that tells you what is best for your money, yet he cannot even manage his own?  For all of you out there this isn’t new news for these type of people.  Lindsay has been around this industry for at least 1 1/2 years and has seen a lot of this go on. 

Anyway, going back to the original story, he basically says I have some business coming in and some I’ve  done for which I have yet to be paid for so don’t worry your paycheque is coming.  Lindsay actually has some great respect for this guy over the other two despite his short comings with his finance and knows that he will pay her.  The biggest thing though is if we were in a much difference situation (which most people are in these days) we would NEED that paycheque and would be saying I don’t care if your broke or not I need to be paid.  Some of the other people around the office said if that was them they would be pretty pissed off because they cannot do without that money.  Which brings me to our situation where while Lindsay is a bit upset, she’s not demanding that he pay her because we’ve been able to get out of debt, have some ongoing residual income in our side business and are in a much better situation then where we were in November of last year. 

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying we are anything special; I’m just trying to point out a situation that affects so many people that are living paycheque to paycheque or in financial trouble.  I’m also not saying you need to build a business like we are or do direct selling or anything like that.  However because of the smarter decisions we’ve made in the recent 6 months we are able to not let this situation affect us like it has for others or even us 6 months ago.  Sure we would like that money because that money is going directly onto debt but at the same time we don’t NEED that money in order to get by.

It’s a scary situation out there in these tough economic times.  If you think it’s going to get better in the coming months or years you are mistaken.  People need to stop the excessive spending, stop trying to “keep with the Joneses”, stop living beyond your means, stop taking those vacations when your still in debt (paying with credit), stop paying with credit, and put a stake in the ground and move forward with your financial situation.  Take some responsibility for the stupid decisions made in the past and start making smart ones. 

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Please check out these other all-star bloggers in the 2010 Summer Blogging Challenge. Cliff – Peer Pressure Works, Chad – The Grind, Kelly – ‘Round the Bend, Kim – In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Kyle – Teacher, Tinkerer, Farmer, Geek, Liam – In the Now, Brad – Kick Me Out Soon, Tammy – Tam I am, Erron – From The Inside Looking In, James – Feelings of White, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine - Because