I understand what your saying Squeaky . Heard a sermon once that compared the time we living in to the Instant Potaoto era . Kids don't to save up for anything . They think cell phones grow on trees . Remember my Mom always asking me if i thought money grew on trees. I saved up for a Ping Pong table , never thought to just expect my parents to cough up the money . Even in my ill spent youth I always paid my bills .
Perhaps it was because our parents went through the depression ?

If anything good happens from this recession , perhaps it will be a renewed understanding of economics from our youth and much of the folks now who live beyond their means . interetsing some of my kids have the problems with fiances , my daughter is more like me and understands paying interest is giving away your money , save up for it . Pay it off quickly .

Here's another, more recent, version: The house we lived in until two months ago was built in 1983. The family that built it, did it themselves. They built the main section first, then, five years later, the garage, then, five years after that, the sun porch. It's a little strange inside because they didn't remove the outside-type doors between the older and newer sections, but it works. It was a very practical way to get the house they wanted, even though they had to wait 10 years. Part of our problem as a society these days is that we don't want to have to wait the 10 years to get what we want.

It sounds quite romantic--but I do relate. I recall at six-years of age our pastor moving from our small community to Minneapolis. I do not recall what actual words I used in my head--but I distinctly recall when we visited the city thinking how materialistic it was.

My mother died this year. None of the four children could take any of her belongings because all of our homes are full of stuff.

I have given away at least 200 stuffed animals in the past couple years. I did not buy one of them. Last night I had my daughter try on at least 60 pairs of Size 8 pants that had been awaiting her growth. We saved 20. I did not buy one.

I've owned six vehicles since 2000. I gave three away and sold two at deep discounts.

Today I put boxes of paper to recycle in our minivan. I calculate there are about 50,000 sheets of paper. Anyone want a defunct computer. I have three (didn't pay for one).

The town I grew up in always burned down dilapidated houses. Since an Amish community moved in (buying the best farmland in the world for cash)--dilapidated houses are dismantled and reused.

I could go on and on. Just feeling we are completely awash in stuff. Abraham Lincoln had a chalk board.

I am offering to pay the registrations of any family/friends to attend Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University this coming year; and asking that after they become debt-free that they do the same for someone else.

Isn't that what jesus lived for and died for. All of us(billions not millions)
living in local communities that center around love God and Love your
nieghbor. All cities have nieghborhoods the people have to get to know
each other first and take the role of humility and a non judgmental
attitude. If you dont have hope for that then I am truely sorry.

This would be a fine principle if it were legal to live in a half-finished house.

That said, if we all behave like people from Belize, wouldn't our country begin to look like, you know, Belize?

Credit and banking have been part of our financial instutions for centuries. I am glad that consumer debt is finally subsiding, but having no debt whatsoever is not necessarily an ideal goal.

How is this scalable to the millions living in the inner cities of our nation?

The truth is that the people in Belize would get mortgages to finish those homes if they could - but such loans are not available to them.

Probably, too, property taxes are non-existent along with the services such support and which we take for granted as being necessary to public health and safety.

You can't get an occupancy permit for a home here unless it is livable by inspection. Neither are the rental slums of Third World nations testimony to righteousness, just because their squalor is affordable.

I didn't miss your point and I thank you for making it. I've traveled in Latin America extensively (living for 10 years in Mexico) and I agree with you.

I also visit the Amish community in Lancaster often, living a couple of hours away, and I have often wished that I had been raised with their values. I do think we have a tremendous amount to learn from these other cultures and God bless those open-minded enough to do just that.

Squeaky - I totally got your point about the people in Belize the first time you explained it. I don't think NM is either reading or thinking clearly here.

We can learn a lot from people who live within their means and aren't always trying to have the latest and greatest or keep up with whatever pop culture tells them they need to have.

Huh--that's a cool story.

Although my point wasn't that we should build houses that way, your story definitely shows that it is possible, even in cold climates like Alaska. I'm sure the ground provided great insulation making it possible to build a home that way. And when it was done, you already had a finished basement!

Thanks for sharing your experience!

I know what you're talking about..
I grew up in Anchorage right after WWII. Many of the former military families decided to settle in my area of town.
They bought the property and then built a basement. They lived in the cozy well insulated basements until they could afford to build on the upstairs.
I remember many of my friends living in basements (my dad was a civil servant and we lived in government housing).
I'm sure the neighborhood would be considered a bit unsightly these days with only the roofs and covered stairwells sticking up around the neighborhood landscape. Over the years there was the gradual raising of skeletons of the houses that sometimes sat through the winter with a roof and 'bones', only to have the next protective coat of insulation and siding added the following summer, or later. It was often several years, when many of us were teens, before the upstairs additions were actually ready to move into. Many times the insulation was still uncovered on the inside of some rooms as the families grew (this was the 50's) and moved on up and in.
I recently visited there and most of those houses are still standing...all built as the families could afford, and later many were added on to.
Back then no one thought of getting a 'builders loan'.
Those neighborhoods may have looked different than the ones you saw, but it was the same 'pay as we build' concept.

My family made sort of a clean break -- moved from a tourist economy along the Gulf of Mexico to a village in NM -- population 150, not counting the many ranch families. The next closest gas station is an hour away; the closest WalMart about two hours down the road.

We came from a wealth-conscious community where we passed houses all the time that made is ask, "Who can afford to live here?" All conveniences at our feet; we'd run to WalMart and come home and realize we forgot something; we'd run to WalMart at least once more on the same day.

I'm ashamed to admit that I developed the mentality shared by lots of WalMart shoppers: we went there for a few groceries and before we left, we had lots of stuff we didn't really need. We got to the place where, even unconsciously, we believed there might be something at that store that would make our lives meaningful.

The air is clearer here. There are a few new houses built by folks like us who moved here from the Big World; everthing else was built decades ago. There is no "Parade of Homes," no open houses and realtors; a big event here is a birthday -- even a child's birthday, which means "party time", with barbeques, roast pigs, and everyone in town. The village is dry -- next alcoholic beverage is 46 miles away and it's just too much trouble.

Our standard of living improved dramatically -- not at all financially, but in our ideas of what we really needed, how to do without until a trip to the bigger towns. Except for the kindergarten girls, no one cares what anyone else wears or drives. Pretentiousness soon fades from lack of attention.

The inconveniences are well worth it for the gifts this place has given us. Without the noise and confusion, inside us and outside, our faith has become the center of our lives. We appreciate those birthday parties. And we're learning that dependence on other people means that we all have to learn to live together regardless of what we have to resolve and swallow.

Nobody moves away. The focus is on life itself, forgiveness, tenacity, and the necessity of humility and repentence. I had no idea how attached I was to "stuff" and how peaceful we are without it.

You completely missed my point. I'm not trying to say that we should only partially build homes. My point is that what we can learn from the Belizeans is not how to build homes but, as I said above, their:

"financial prudence in a people who do the most with what they have and who don't try to do more with what they don't have or spend beyond their means."

Is that not a valid lesson we can learn? Or should we just continue to borrow money when we know we can't afford the interest payments? Should we put our entire budgets on plastic? She we continue the predatory lending and foolish borrowing that has resulted in our current housing crisis? Do you agree that those are bad economic practices? Do you agree that wise spending practices, spending within one's means are good economic practices?

I don't think people are ready for living in open skeletal "housing" in January in Minnesota.

When it happens, you will know that for many, America will have become a Third World nation - precisely where it has to be for them to make their labor competitive in a global economy where a new supranational elite pit one desperate population of workers against another, as if they are mere commodities instead of fellow human beings.

We have an office building here in Orlando Florida, right on the main highway through the center of the state, which is being built by a religious based organization. It's been under construction for about 10 years now. I don't know if they will get it finished before they need to start replacing some of the parts that were built early on. The local media does a news story on it every couple of years.

My take on credit cards is that if I can't afford it this month, I can't afford it next month with interest piled onto it.

I have a friend from New Mexico. She remembers her childhood -- her parents could afford 12 bricks a week. When they got about 50, they would add another row to the garage they were building on their property. It took years, but it got done, added property value, and they didn't go into debt for it.

We've wondered how many towns in America would even let you do that now...leaving a building only particially constructed until you could afford to finish it. While I appreciate the safety concerns that may include, or the issue of projects that would never be finished, part of me truly longs for that kind of understanding of economy and delayed gratification in our lives.

People here also used to live in basement houses...where the basement was finished first, people lived in them, and slowly built their houses above ground.

I didn't say the homes weren't livable. People live in them. They just aren't finished. Certainly, the homes aren't up to our standards, but they have a roof over their heads, and they seemed pretty proud to be able to provide that for their families. What is the alternative--no home whatsoever? Certainly half built homes is a sign of financial distress. But at the same time it is a sign of financial prudence in a people who do the most with what they have and who don't try to do more with what they don't have or spend beyond their means. Certainly there is a lesson we can learn from that.

Comparing them to unfinished condos here is comparing apples to oranges. The unfinished condos were started with the thought they would be finished on borrowed money rather than cash on hand.

The Belizeans know exactly how much money they have to build with, and they build accordingly. They don't start a project they know they won't be able to finish. They start a project they intend to finish gradually. Unlike the abandoned condos here, their homes aren't failures but intentional works in progress. And in the meantime, they have homes that they live in.

I think half-finished homes that can't be lived in are signs that the builder didn't follow the scriptural admonition to "count the cost" before starting. I have a friend who lives in a hovel next to a home that promised to be almost a mansion, were it ever finished. Over the years, since his job was offshored, it sits in the weather deteriorating, a monument to poor planning.

I suppose the partiallly built condo developments that blight the land or even Trump's unfinished tower are signs that, like the lesser failures in the Third Wold, "they got it right"?

Where the Amish thrive (or even Habitat for Humanity), you won't find such aborted signs of financial distress.

The Amish approach to spending used to be the approach most Americans had, up until quite recently. Most of us older than 30 probably remember that when we wanted something when we were kids, our parents didn't just give it to us. Rather, we had to save for it. It took my quite awhile before I could afford that skateboard!

Back in the not-too-distant "Day", Credit cards used to be used for emergency-only purposes, not the first thing we reach for when we buy something. If we couldn't afford something, we would save up for it, or purchase it on layaway (making a comeback in this economy). When our economy started to be focused on the model of instant gratification rather than the frugal approach taken by our parents and grandparents (many of whom lived through the Depression), it was bound to collapse.

I was in Belize this summer. In Belize, people build their homes as they can afford to. So we saw a lot of partially-built homes while the owners waited to save up for the next addition. When we returned to the states, one person in our party said she was so glad that she could see completely-built houses again. I reminded her that Belizeans only built when they could afford it. Her remark revealed her disdain for that practice--something on the order of "get a loan, people! Figure it out!" Which was a disappointing response given that one reason we went to Belize was to be exposed to the challenges of living in a third world nation. The irony that we were in the midst of home foreclosures resulting from Americans building when they couldn't afford it seemed to be lost on her. The Belizeans have it right.

How funny! I lived near Lancaster county for about 2 years nearly 20 years ago. I wondered what the Black Bumper Mennonites would think of my red bumper.

I think many average Americans envy much about the Amish and Mennonite lifestyle. We crave simplicity in so many ways -- just aren't so sure of what we're willing to give up to get it. I personally enjoy things a little more simple. I also love the thought of a tight community, yet hate the thought of a tight community. I really enjoy my privacy, so felt a little skittish when I lived there.