They’re at it again…

Read time: 3 minutes

Recently I received an email from my bank about a credit card I have (and pay off every month). Here's what it said:

Allow me to translate that for you:

"Pleeeeeease! Please please please take out more debt!! Look at how happy the people in the photo are! Look how much money we'll give you to buy whatever you want! Would you please just borrow more money?? We have Christmas bonuses coming up!"

This is why I never go to banks for financial advice.

They pose as these wise counselors of good financial habits, but it’s a lie.

At the end of the day, their goal is clear - to keep you paying the maximum amount of payments they can get you to take on.

And they’ll use lots of little tricks to get you to borrow more.

“Buy now pay later! $0 down! 0% APR financing! No credit check!”

All gimmicks to make you consume more than you actually should, so that they can enjoy the income you worked hard for, not you.

Banks and retailers have become experts in getting people to trade years of freedom for slight, temporary increases of comfort.

“This new sound system will make movies feel like IMAX! Theater quality - right in your living room! You’ll never be so happy!”

But the movies you’ll watch are the exact same. Your experience is nearly identical to before you had the sound system.

“This new car has heated leather seats! A payment of only $580! Ooooooo!”

But this car does 99% of what my current car does. Is a warm butt really worth $580 of my income?

This kind of “minor comfort increase for a few small payments” is everywhere.

Cell phone companies will let you put that $1500 phone on payments as a part of your cell phone bill.

Mortgage lenders will approve you for too expensive of a house.

Colleges will let you take out way more in loans than your future job can reasonably pay for - but at least your campus has a nice student center.

If you stop listening to the “experts” like the banks and start thinking for yourself, you’ll begin to see how things are designed to keep you consuming more for very little benefit, not to make your life better.

I’d rather trust what God says than what the banks say.

There is a lot of power in contentment. Not only for your wealth (it’s probably one of the greatest ‘hacks’ for wealth building there is), but for your own happiness.

Contentedness is the opposite of deprivation.

It’s saying, I COULD have that thing, but I CHOOSE not to. I’m happy without it.

I have enough.

Learning this skill, and it is a skill, is one of the best things you can do for your faith and for your finances.

If you have any examples of companies trying to woo you into taking on more debt with them, send them my way! I love to see all the clever ways they think of to try to part us from our paychecks.

And above all, keep moving forward. You've got this.

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