Exactly. While I know that some people really aren’t able to raise themselves up, many people can find a way to work harder – whether through getting more education or just a better job – and raise themselves up to the level they wish to be at.

Although, with this economy and how difficult it is to find jobs, there are more and more people relying on those cards just for the basics. And then they are going to have a horrible time attempting to get to the levels they want to be, because they will be buried in the debt they had to create.

What we have witnessed for the last three decades is an aberation…there really is NO FREE LUNCH. If you want more toys and a bigger house, you have to increase your income, not build a house of cards with Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx!

J.D. – have a nice “day off.” Hope you and Kris get to do something fun.

That’s great! Wait until prices go up, THEN buy. Meanwhile, I’m going to keep buying every month, and happily acquire the most stock for the lowest prices I can. I am Gen X, and I am not “skittish”. I don’t care if I don’t get 10%; whatever I get is most likely going to be better than the 1-3% cash and bonds would get me, and I have plenty of time to get conservative later. Talk about wasted youth!!!

I think it is healthy to be skeptical about the stock market, rather than believing in the conventional wisdom that you can earn 10%+ per year with ease. We had a couple stock market bubbles, now we’re seeing the opposite – people fleeing to the safety of bonds.

I use a credit card to buy groceries, and I don’t overspend. If you payoff your credit card balance in full, even if you don’t use the airline miles, it doesn’t hurt you in the slightest.

And Dave Ramsey has been known to misquote statistics to back up his anti-credit card stance.

So far this year, I’ve received over $600 in cash back on my purchases from credit card rewards. I pay for anything I can with a rewards credit card. I always pay my balance off in full. My wife and I max out our IRAs, and I put in enough for a company match in my 401k, and we’ll manage to pay down our mortgage by $10,000 this year. All this while using credit cards for purchasing everything we can.

Dave Ramsey’s ideas work well for some people, but those of us who are disciplined don’t need to shun credit cards like they’re the black plague.

If using a rewards credit card doesn’t work for you, that’s fine, don’t use them. But it doesn’t mean they’re a bad idea for everyone.

I would say this would be the right time to invest, if you are in it for the long term. Probably a couple of decades.

But this is a good time to invest. Most of the time you wont go wrong when you invest when people are fearful. And these days people are extremely fearful of the stock market.

I guess some of these links…