Dear Editor:

I like to think there are three types of people's personal finances.

1- The type who automatically put 5% - 10% of their salary into savings and only spend what they have.

2 - The type who keep their expenses to a minimum, pay-off their credit cards every month and only manage to save a small amount.

And 3 - The type that lives by (what I lovingly call) “The Mikey School of Finance.” (I actually knew/know three people in this category).

Mikey makes $49,000 a year. He has a nice house, a car (or two), goes on nice trips every year and buys nothing but the best of things. Mikey lives “high on the hog,” he’s spending about $68,000 a year, but that’s $18,000 a year more than he makes. How is that possible? Easy - loans and credit cards. 

So after years of this (and taking out more credit cards and loans) to finance his lavish lifestyle he now owes a total of $366,257.

What happens now? Well since he can no longer afford the payments he loses his house, and or, files for bankruptcy.

Oh wait, why do these numbers look familiar?

Oh yeah, just add eight zeros to them and you have our country's finances.

Joe Scorcia

Boothbay