The Money Party is Over!

Hi everyone, I wanted to share my most recent column:

It's just days from one of the most anticipated presidential elections in history and I can't help but think: What will the writers at "Saturday Night Live" do? Tina Fey and Sarah Palin have become the same person to me. I can't look at either one of them without saying "maaa-vrick" out loud (which can be embarrassing when you are in public). It's been so much fun these past few months that I'm almost sorry it will be over.

But the comic relief is only a temporary distraction from the gravity of this decision and the implications it has on the economic crisis we are facing. What I'm really trying to say is that the money party appears to be over. Talk about a blatant wake-up call; it's like being in a bar at last call when the lights go on and you realize you are drunk and talking to someone who isn't evenly remotely attractive. Time to exit — stage left.

The problem is that regardless of whether you favor the right or the left, there is no quick departure from this mess. OK, now I'm back to the "Saturday Night Live" skit with the financial expert's advice: "Fix it, just fix it!" You see, I will miss the political parodies more than you know.

I've been trying desperately to see where the silver lining is here, and I may have found it. Perhaps this is what many of us needed — myself included — to slap ourselves back into the practical world of sensible spending, one where you actually have to budget and wait for things. Imagine? I'm annoyed if I have to wait in line to purchase something that I decided I needed five minutes ago.

Frankly, I think the past decade has been a money orgy for most of us. We have lived by the credo: easy come, easy go — but mostly the "go" part. I mean, really, saving money? Who does that anymore? Around here, it's been: Live for the day, for tomorrow may never come. Except that it has. So now we're scrambling for coupons and taking those Bob's Discount Furniture ads a lot more seriously.

My parents really had it right when they had a young family; they kept their cars for 10 years, put money into maintaining and fixing items rather than replacing them, and actually did their homework to uncover the best deals before buying higher-priced items. I wouldn't know a Consumer Reports magazine if it hit me in the face; and it should.

Just to illustrate my point, let me give you a couple of scenarios and describe how my parents versus my own family would react to them:

It is unlikely you will get a holiday bonus this year because of the slumping economy. If you are my parents, you cut back your holiday shopping list, put off buying that new living room set and put away as much money as possible. If you are my family (OK me), you decide that the kids really do deserve Apple's latest iTouch, a trampoline and a trip to Disney World. You might as well just charge it and hope for a big tax return in the spring.

You buy a new sofa for your living room. If you are my parents, you wait until next year to buy a new leather chair and that nifty coffee table you've been eyeing. If you are me, you buy it all in the same day. Once you get the new furniture home, you realize that the rug will need to be replaced and the walls painted a slightly different shade of ecru. Oh no, the curtains aren't a perfect match either ...

Look, the truth is I've never defaulted on a loan or bought a house I couldn't afford, but I've certainly not been as frugal as I ought. And I ought. Even though the market is sure to rebound over time, I am still a bit dazed from that death spiral we took.

And I don't want to recover all that quickly.

What I mean is that I need this experience to be vile enough to actually change my long-term spending habits, to create an internal pause button that is activated when I am about to book that Caribbean trip or buy those black leather boots.

But unless someone slaps the money or the credit card out of my hand, I'm afraid the only thing I might pause for is to ask if the boots come in brown, too. I guess the question I should ask myself is: What would my parents do?