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What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience? Adam Smith

The headline reads Canadians are left with $200.00 after paying their monthly bills and debt. When you read a little further 44% of Canadians face this situation which is less than 52% who faced it in March of 2017 and 56% of Canadians who faced it in September 2016.

Why wasn’t the headline Canadians are digging themselves out of a financial hole they found themselves in? Couldn’t we all use some good news for a change? When things are getting better because people are managing their money better, taking charge of their spending, investing, and choices they make, isn’t that the news?

Is there something out there that wants us to swallow the fact that we can’t change our debt load? We can’t live the way we want, we can’t be debt free if we choose to be? We can’t choose over “good debt” and “bad debt”? What if we all became financially astute? What if we started buying what we needed, instead of impulse buying?

Are people becoming financially aware and looking after their own best interests scary for the government, credit card companies, and corporations? If we got off the treadmill, or never got on the treadmill would we be less easy to control?

A person, who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking match. Little Dorrit

Is this the fear, that the sheep will become less sheepish? AS Charles Dickens Mr. Micawber’s famous quote for happiness says, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

Living within our means has always been the way to happiness. The bible warns us about debt. Debt is not new. Getting ahead in life without taking on any debt seems impossible. This is why debt is divided into two camps, “good debt” and “bad debt”.

People have been reading books on finance. “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” is being read by young people, and some of them are taking the advice to heart. There is hand wringing over their reluctance to take on car debt, what if they’ve learned from their parents what not to do, and are looking for a better way?

The hippies rebelled and perhaps young people are following in their footsteps. They want more out of life, not less. They want choice and when we are so deep in debt we lose our choice.

It was evident from the general tone of the whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally broke out. Little Dorrit

If Canadians are taming the debt monster this is a good thing. It may not be happening as fast as we’d like. The statistics look to me like we are moving in the right direction. We should be celebrating; we should be encouraging more to do the same. It can be done. If 56% had only $200.00 after paying their bills and debts in 2016 and now only 44% are in that situation in 2019 that is 12% of people taking charge, taking control and being better off financially. At least that’s the way the article reads to me.

Are we taking charge of our finances? It is scary to add up the numbers and not like what we see, but scarier still to hide our head in the sand. We can face the debt monster, and we can win. The first step is making a decision to deal with what is.