Cash and carry or stop making rich people richer.

Remember "Cash and Carry" emblazoned outside and in small shops and stores? For that matter, do you even remember small shops and stores? If so, your memory goes back to simpler, more frugal, times. Today's mega-businesses encourage use of credit cards, spending, and hedonistic indulgence. The result? The average American family is now over $5,000 in debt just on their credit cards. That debt generates an interest charge of $75 monthly if your card charges the average 18%. If you missed a payment or made a late payment (even by one day!), you may be paying up to 27% interest or over $112 each month. And you make rich people richer.

In the late 19th Century, average proprietors of small shops worked hard and made a small profit from sales to average people. Credit cards did not exist and the small businesses which allowed a customer to "put it on my tab" lacked the capital to survive long. Delivery costs also compromised the slim profits.

Thus "cash and carry." Pay cash and carry it out the store. This still makes sense, even in 2008. Why are you contributing to the growth of rich people's millions and billions?

The basic principle: pay cash. Don't pay interest. Paying interest makes us poor people poorer and guess who gets richer? When you shop, ask yourself:

* Do I really need this?

* Will I use it repeatedly or is it just a whim?

* What is the environmental cost?

* When it wears out will it recycle?

All good questions which you consider when contemplating a purchase. But add another self-query:

* Can I buy it for cash or must I pay interest? It's tough enough getting by, so why do I pay interest money to affluent financiers?

Oh, I sometimes use my bank's debit card. It creates a paper trail valuable if merchandise or services are unsatisfactory. But a debit card with ample balance incurs no interest, so it's the same as paying cash. We once called it "living within your means." Heard that phrase recently? I hope so. Are you doing it?

Living within your means offers many advantages. For example, here in the northeast many heat the long winters with oil. As I have more cash from not paying interest every month, I prepaid my oil supply before winter. For example, $2.58 per gallon in advance, but when the heating season arrived it soared to $3.34, settling back to about $3.30 as I write. So I saved about $720 for a 1,000-gallon season! And without negative impact on my local dealer, a friend and neighbor, who used my cash to in turn prepay the big oil vendor.

Which suggests using cash with all small local merchants. They necessarily accept credit cards in today's business milieu (see Patrice Lewis' article "Sensible Business Practices for the Self-Employed" in COUNTRYSIDE July/August 2006), but must accept a discount. Sure, they raise prices to cover the cost, but it's not easy for a small business to make it today against the mega-merchants. When I pay cash at a store, it helps my neighbor as well as me. And a distant financier gets none of our transaction.

With more cash available you can take advantages of sales on what you need to buy anyway at reduced prices. And buy in bulk. We purchase case lots of canned milk, powdered milk, and toilet paper at substantial savings from our grocer: 10% above his cost. I carry it out, he earns a small profit without paying stocking costs. If we could barely get by to the end of the month, we wouldn't have the cash to do this.

"But I can't pay cash for regular purchases. I just make it after mortgage, car payment, gasoline and utilities, and credit card interest on the refrigerator, washer, and furniture."

Are we really the richest nation on earth if the average American can just get by until the next paycheck? Is it patriotic to buy buy buy or is it just adding to the coffers of the rich? Would not our nation be more powerful with a smaller consumer debt than the $2.004 trillion reported by the Federal Reserve in March, 2007? "In the old days, the best customers were people who could pay off their loans. Today the best clients of the banking industry are those who will never pay off their loans, because they pay continuing interest and may even incur additional fees," wrote Robert D. Manning, author of Credit Card Nation: The Consequences of America's Addiction to Credit.

So get started. Pay cash, and if you can't, improvise and do without. Just don't add it to your credit card and thus pay more interest. If you cannot reduce your debt, at least don't add to it! Most credit card companies require a modest payment towards the card balance. Paying off $7,000 at $20 a month takes 29 years. Perhaps you have no choice. But you can choose right now not to make the rich any richer on your back.

Credit does offer advantages. Average people cannot buy a house or even a car for cash. Paying a house mortgage builds up equity which rent does not, and it's good that bankers and loan agencies have the wealth to loan you the money. But we have become imprudent, afrugal, and buy beyond our means, as the home credit debacle shows. I imagine that few COUNTRYSIDE readers fall in the multimillion dollar home class. But whatever your mortgage, paying cash starting now forces you to reconsider every possible acquisition, ceasing your mushrooming interest liability, and slowly getting you out of debt altogether. And you know what? You might even then begin saving, earning interest yourself and paying off your car loan or house mortgage early!

Decide to do without some fashions or electronics or other impulse items which you'd buy on credit. Reduce increasing the wealth of the wealthy through interest payments to them. Henry Thoreau wrote (in Chapter 3 of Walden) that "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."

Start today by letting something small alone. And stop making rich people richer.

Find cheap firewood

When roofing trusses are manufactured, the various angles require cutting off up to 23 inches of 2 x 4s. Check with local truss manufacturers to find out what they do with these scrap pieces. They may be willing to let you haul them off for free or at a nominal cost.--Ken Scharabok

Look what happens when you save just $25 per month:

Years     3%         6%          9%         12%

20      $8,228    $11,609     $16,822     $24,979
30      $14,605   $25,238     $46,112     $88,248
40      $23,209   $50,036     $117,911    $297,061

Results of saving $15 per week:

%       1 year     2 years     3 years

4%      $795.50   $1,623.45   $2,485.17
5%      $799.44   $1,639.84   $2,523.31
6%      $803.40   $1,656.45   $2,562.21

If you aren't paying off high interest bills, put all "extra" money
(tax refunds, gifts) into these accounts to make your money grow
even faster.