As readers know, Aunt Toby does not do a lot of product flogging here — but these are actually limited edition posters, signed as well. So, you get your directive AND your art at the same time.

How to Project

One thing I have not written about is how I feel about credit card companies targeting people who not only are not in a position either psychologically or financially to take on debt, but the effects of people such as these groups who end up with huge amounts of debt at times in their lives when they can least afford to have it.

These people are college students. At one time, even Aunt Toby and her beloved DH, both working, could not even get within smelling distance of getting a credit card. That was before the banking laws were changed in the early 1980s. Soon thereafter, we were inundated with credit card offers. We were not the only ones. As banks and credit card companies started to realize the overwhelming amount of money that was to be made by sticking a hunk of plastic into people’s hands and encouraging them to go shopping, they started to look for other groups of people to market debt (woops, credit) to – and one of the first was to college students. They not only went after college students with mail, special events, advertisements in college newspapers and so on, they also marketed themselves to colleges and college organizations themselves. They gained access to college student records, their home addresses, phone numbers and so on. Students were inundated with multiple card offers constantly.

Students who don’t have any visible means of income. Students who more than likely already had Guaranteed Student Loans and other forms of financial aid.

Students who could not afford to take on any more debt.

“In each year between 2000 – 01 and 2006 – 07, an estimated 60% of bachelor’s degree recipients borrowed to fund their education. Average debt per borrower rose 18%, from $19,300 to $22,700 in 2007 dollars over this time period…. In 2008, 84% of undergraduates had at least 1 credit card, up from 76% in 2004, the last time the study was conducted. The average number of cards has grown to 4.6, and half of college students had 4 or more cards.
Undergraduates are carrying record-high credit card balances. The average (mean) balance grew to $3,173, the highest in the years the study has been conducted. Median debt grew from 2004’s $946 to $1,645. 21% of undergraduates had balances of between $3,000 and $7,000, also up from the last study….The average outstanding balance on graduate student credit cards is $8,612, an increase of 10% from the 2003 average of $7,831.”
Student Debt Stats

We’ve discussed what credit card debt really costs Atkins For Plastic

Now we can discuss the new federal legislation that changes the way that credit card companies can approach college students from now on:
“The bill also addresses some of the worst abuses of credit-card use on campuses. Without a co-signer, full-time college students under 21 will be confined to what amounts to credit-card training wheels, with credit restricted to 20% of a student’s income. The presence of a co-signer protects college students from sudden rate increases; under the new law, a student’s co-signer has to approve any such hikes.”
That’s the good news. 20% of a student’s income. If a student has no income of his or her own, then that student can’t be given a credit card. On the other side, however, the bill did nothing about the access that colleges give to credit card companies in the first place:

“,…the sweeping law, which takes effect in nine months, doesn’t address every college credit-card controversy. Most notably it does little to address affinity-card contracts, which encourage colleges and universities to sell students’ contact information to credit-card companies. These often confidential contracts bond hundreds of schools across the country with credit-card companies eager to sign up undergraduates. In some cases the school’s financial reward increases handsomely when students frequently swipe their cards…”

Indeed, many students, under increasing pressures of exploding rates of tuition and fees and moribund financial aid programs, have turned to using their credit cards to pay for education.

“College students aren’t just swiping their cards to pick up pizza tabs or buy school-spirited sweatshirts. They are increasingly using them for such big-ticket items as college tuition. Just five years ago, 24% of students charged a portion of tuition to a credit card — a number that has grown to about 30%, according to Sallie Mae.”
College Students Debt

Even a college loan would not be charging the rates of interest that credit cards do. And in today’s economy, where this year’s graduates, it is estimated, only have a one in five chance of having a job at this point, how will recent graduates pay off these balances, which will be growing…and growing…and growing with all the late fees, and increased interest as we saw in the example on paying the minimum balance.

In any economy, young people just starting out are actually a vital part of the economic engine. Whether it is buying a car, furnishing an apartment, getting married, having children, or saving up for a house – young people between the ages of 22 and 30 are a vital part of the economic pipeline. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this vital piece of the machinery has actually been stalled for quite some time, as young people, burdened with huge amounts of debt upon graduation and largely without high paying jobs to repay that debt, cannot afford to get married, cannot afford to get an apartment of their own, cannot afford to buy a car..cannot afford to participate in any meaningful way in growing the economy.

The vibrant economy really does require people to spend money. Hopefully they are spending it on sensible sorts of things and saving and investing for the future.

But they can’t do it if they are starting out their lives with something approaching $30,000 in debt, most of which they have to pay off in ten years.

Here is an example
Loan Balance:
$30,000.00
Adjusted Loan Balance: $30,612.24
Loan Interest Rate: 6.80%
Loan Fees: 2.00%
Loan Term: 10 years
Minimum Payment: $50.00

Monthly Loan Payment: $352.29
Number of Payments: 120

Cumulative Payments: $42,274.24
Total Interest Paid: $12,274.24
Note: The monthly loan payment was calculated at 119 payments of $352.29 plus a final payment of $351.73.
The loan balance was adjusted to yield $30,000.00 after deducting the 2.00% loan fees.
It is estimated that you will need an annual salary of at least $42,274.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan.
Student Loan Payments

For me, the lightbulb moment is that last sentence: ‘need an annual salary of at least $42,274.80 to be able to afford to repay this loan.” How many students do YOU know who, upon their bachelor’s degree graduation, have a job in hand that grosses over $42,000? Me neither.

Something much more dramatic must be done to deal with the relationship between colleges, college students, student loans and credit card debt. The current bill is already being screamed about by credit card companies and banks and even this does not go nearly far enough. President Obama has already talked about student loans – Aunt Toby is sincerely hoping that that situation can be radically changed, otherwise, we truly will return to the days when college was affordable only to the rich.

And it reminded me that there are certain truths to life and one of them is the old saw about ‘Time is the currency of our lives’. All we have is time. All we sell, no matter what our skills are, is time. We only have 24 hours in a day and seven days in a week. And we only have a certain amount of that during which we not only want to work, but can physically work. So, therefore, time IS money. We even use the same sorts of language with regard to time as we do to money: Spending money…spending time. Saving money..saving time. Wasting money…wasting time. Investing money..investing time. Time really does, to a certain extent, equal money.

But the question comes back around to this: What if YOU were called in and told that the amount of time that they’d pay you for at your current job has now been cut by 20% — you now have a whole day to do anything you want to do. What would you do with that?

Now, a lot of people are so stressed in their work lives that if they were offered an official ‘three day weekend’ every single week, they’d dance a jig for joy. I’m not sure when they woke up the second or third time, though, if they’d know what to do with that time other than watch tv, mow the lawn or cruise the internet. But one day a week to do with as we wish – a real gift. What would I do with that?

If I worked in a place where the benefits included education or training – I’d use my time and take advantage of that benefit now. I still would have my job, albeit at a reduced salary or number of hours, but if I could still take advantage of the benefit, I’d look at the economy, my employer, my place at my employer and ask myself the following question: “What’s the one thing I can improve in my background or skills that when the economy turns around again(and it will do that, trust me), I will be in a position to be able to present myself as ‘the new and improved ME’?” No matter how bad the economy is, every company has (or should have) some forward plans – find the guardians of those plans and ask them where the company is going to be in the future – where are they going and what skills will be necessary for them to get there? It might be, believe it or not, foreign language skills. Or it might be certain computer programs. Or it might be more strength in the financial end of things. If it’s a manufacturer, it might be a computer program, or computer aided design, or computer programmed robots or some other technical skill. All of these are subjects that I can take advantage of at my local voc tech high school, community college or university and if I can take advantage of educational benefits and now use a more flexible working schedule, then I would definitely take that on.

But perhaps they don’t want me to come to work every day but just leave early (and there are some issues with this that I’ll discuss in a little bit)? What if they only want me to take a day off? Well, then, I’d take Fridays off and look for a program that works on weekends.

What else could I do with my time? What if I look at my company and the economy and feel that even with a turnaround in the economy, it and my place in the company is still a problem?

Well, then with a day a week at my disposal, I’d start looking at:

– Contacting people in other more likely industries and getting informational interviews (“I’m thinking about going into the xxxxx industry? Is there anyone who has a half hour to talk to me about opportunities?”)
— Contacting people and rebuilding my networking because no one is at the top of their game in terms of that.
— Contacting people and asking them about how their companies are doing. I still have a job, but it is always really good to know what is going on in my backyard and letting people know that I’m interested in what THEY are doing. You never know what direction a local company is going in – they might just have been bought by someone else; they might be going into new products or processes. Information is personal power. Don’t forget that.

Let’s suppose that I’m of an age that I’m not thinking particularly energetically. Perhaps I am thinking about using that time for more volunteer things. There is not one organization in my community that can’t use skills and time. If nothing else, I’d take the day and offer it to my local school district to help kids with their reading and elementary arithmetic skills, or I could arrange to take them on field biology walks. The schools butt up on a reservoir and I do have some field botany experience and knowledge – I’d be more than happy to take a group of kids out and do some collecting, plant pressing and drying, mounting, and so on.

But lastly, something I’d think about is this: Leave early every day (or the other side of it, coming in 1.5 hours later every day) or take a whole day?

I’ve had experiences ‘working half time’ and I can tell you this – first, I never actually got to work only half time. Invariably, I got a call just before I’d have to leave and I’d have to stay later. Or I’d have to go talk to someone. Or something else would happen. I have got to work a four hour day. Working more hours than half time and only getting paid for half time turns you into someone who is working for less and less on an hourly basis. That’s one of those ‘slit my throat when I look in the mirror’ things. Do not do that. Secondly, if you take the one day and smooth that over the entire five day workweek, you still have travel, clothing, eating, etc. costs on every day. So, YOU still have all the same expenses you had before; you just have less income to pay for them.

So, if you are offered this sort of thing (that is, we are cutting your hours) – take all of it as a lump – a half a day on Friday or a whole day of Friday (or, Monday – take your pick, but don’t take a day during the week).

And USE that time for YOU.
(photo courtesy of badboy69)

So, you say you don’t have the money for a gym membership. Okay – Aunt Toby is good with that.
And you say you have never lifted weights and are just a little bit scared of hurting yourself. Yep – I’m with you there too. And you say that it’s not something you worry about really.

Just hold it right there, bucko.

No one WANTS to choose to not be strong, especially where it counts: in the legs and the back. No one WANTS to choose to hurt themselves, to not be able to pick up their own child or their toddler grandchild. No one WANTS to choose to end up with a broken hip or wrist when they are older.

We just sort of … allow it to happen.

I’m not that Jack La-whatever-his-name-is who is really ‘long in the tooth’ and who swam in the Pacific and dragged a bunch of boats with his teeth (or whatever it was he did that showed what great shape he’s in). Frankly, your Aunty here is like a lot of you: I sit at a desk all damn day at a computer. I’ve got family cardiac history up the wazoo. My mom broke her wrist in her 80s (and never knew how it happened because she did not fall) and then later on broke her hip. She ended up having to have surgery to install something called a ‘Greenfield Filter’ into her femoral artery so that she wouldn’t end up being killed by a blood clot.

So, what I’m here to talk about today is how to prevent that.

Weightlifting for the Not-Young

“The American College of Sports Medicine now recommends weight training for all people over 50, and even people well into their 90s can benefit. A group of nursing home residents ranging in age from 87 to 96 recently improved their muscle strength by almost 180 percent after just eight weeks of weightlifting, also known as strength training. Adding that much strength is almost like rolling back the clock. Even frail elderly people find their balance improves, their walking pace quickens, and stairs become less of a challenge.

Among these elders is Sara, 91, who had a lot of trouble walking after healing from a serious hip fracture. But after starting a weight-lifting program in which she practiced either leg presses or leg curls three times a week, she was able to walk a quarter of a mile without assistance and pedal a stationary bike.

“I feel better physically and mentally; I feel wonderful inside and out,” Sara told the authors of the book Successful Aging (Dell, 1999). “I must go for that exercise three times a week, I must. You have to push yourself.”

But let’s say you don’t have the money to have a gym membership and you know yourself well enough to know that you spend a whole lot of time at your computer…and that’s fine with you. Aunt Toby is here to tell you that – you’ve got no excuses — check out the photograph above. All of those things (or something like them) can be found on your kitchen cupboard shelves. The DH did me the favor of pulling all sorts of stuff out and weighing it for me. These are great weights to get started with. You want to blog in your jammies? Great – just put a couple of these items under the computer table and haul them out and lift them a bunch of times while you are doing it. Here’s what you get — the order (one of these days Aunt Toby is going to figure out how to do charts in html) is: Item….Weight as Stated on the Outside of the package…Weight on the scale

Can of Cream of chicken soup….10.75 oz…………….12 oz.
Can of Black Beans……………….15.5 oz……………..1 lb., 1 oz.
Can of Tuna………………………..5 oz…………………6 oz.
Can of Mushrooms…………………6.5 oz………………8 oz.
Can of Tomatoes………………….28 oz………………..2 lbs.
Gallon Jug of Water……………………………………….8 lbs., 9 oz.

So, you haven’t done any weightlifting since college…maybe you have not lifted weights ever. Start small – start with the tunafish and build up. Don’t know HOW to do resistence exercises? Here’s a good site with videos: Free Weight Exercises Just substitute the cans for the barbells. Work up slowly. If it hurts, don’t do that again. Do a little bit every time you sit down at the computer. I keep a gallon jug of water next to my computer table and make it my business to do three or four upper body exercises on both sides. Yes, we have a whole free weights set up in the basement — but I spend far more time at the computer than I ever do downstairs working out.

But what about the lower body? OK — You’re sitting down. Take a thick book out and put it on the floor. Rest the front of one foot on that dictionary and that gallon jug of water on the knee of that leg. Lower your heel over the side of the book and then lift it up. Do that a bunch of times and then switch legs. Another exercise while you are computing there at the desk: Lower your desk chair (if you can – if not, get a lower chair) and sit with your feet together. One leg at a time, alternating, lift your knee until you hit the bottom of the desk. Do that 10-15 times on each leg.

This is not the be all and end all of exercise; frankly, I’m going to take a stand here and remind everyone that the more exercise you get, the more you can do, the healthier you are and the lower your chance of ending up with hip fractures and other problems of aging. But for those of us who are avoiding a lot of this, here is a way to get some good resistence training in WHILE we are blogging in our jammies…

While I sat there watching the story reel out, the thought occurred to me that we really don’t know what we can do if we try. There is one character in the film who when asked what he did in his old life, announces himself as ‘an intellectual’ – yet, not to much farther in the story, we see this man perched on the top of a shelter hammering away to help put a log roof on which will be covered with branches so that the Germans cannot see it from the air.

I think before we see genuine improvement in the economy, a lot of us are going to be faced with this same situation: We may not be able to earn a living with the skills we have; we will have to learn new ones or add more depth to the skills we have. I’m not saying that we should all run out and attach ourselves as apprentices to shoe makers (if you could find one who would take you on). What I am saying is that it might be a very good idea for us to look ahead and think, “What skills can I learn or add which will make me more valuable at work – that will help me not get fired or laid off?” Or, what if my company just decides to go into Chapter 7 – straight for bankruptcy – not into Chapter 11 (reorganization). Looking in my local area, will my skills still be valued or should I start thinking about adding some skills that more companies in my area are hiring for?”

At the moment, I’m working on learning Access 2007; my current company uses this program a lot and other companies use it also. If I were a younger person, I’d think seriously about taking some technical courses because we have a large percentage of our manufacturing base locally which uses those skills. But the important thing, I think, is to think ahead – how can I turn my skills to a new situation if, like those people in the woods, I’m asked “what do you know how to do?”

We’re back in the kitchen (because that is where the food, the heat and the good seats are). We’ve talked about (to review, in case anyone is taking notes here and no – there are no essay questions on the final) saving money, starting a garden, “doing one thing” to improve your situation, and finding out who your network is.

Today, we’re going to grasp the wriggly monster with both hands: The country is in the toilet. Really. The news gets worse every day. It looks as if we are “staring down the barrel of a gun” and “hitting the wall” – simultaneously. (Being able to do both at the same times is going to take the skills and physique of a contortionist, but I digress.)

And now Elliot Spitzer gets out there and basically says that all the money that has been used to bail out the banks and AIG was wasted – like we didn’t know that already.

But he did talk about something that we WILL talk about which is:
“government investment in the long-range competitiveness of our nation, not in a failed business model…”

What I want you to do, right now (and you know I am all about the “right now”) is to take that phrase “government investment in the long-range competitiveness of our nation” and replace a couple of words so that it reads like this:

“personal investment in the long-range competitiveness of ME” or “family investment in the long-range competitiveness of family members.”

Recently, I also wrote a diary about the cost of higher education and what it is doing to American competitiveness (you know the shorter version and frankly, our competitiveness is in the shitter too). How are you going to improve your and your family’s competitiveness with THAT?

I’d also like to remind folks about a couple of things from the Great Depression and from bad times more recent: Companies that invested, whether it was for advertising (during the Great Depression) or in developing new products (even when Corning, Inc.’s stock went straight into the toilet, landing finally at $1.80, they still invested in developing new products, which is what keeps them competitive), invariably come out the other end of an economic mess in better shape, more profitable, and more competitive than those who hunker down, cut spending, lay off staff and hope to still be there when the sun shines again.

So, what does this have to do with you, bucky? And your fam? You need to look at yourself and your family as your own little economic unit, your own little company, if you will. And we are in the bottom of all toilets right now. Time to cut costs to the bone? Hunker down? Hope things will get better later?

Mmmmmm, no.

Yes, you can cut your operating costs at home – plastic on the windows, more effective nutrition, not eating out. But you need to, like those successful companies from the Great Depression, invest and position yourselves for the future.

Advertising and Marketing:

Get out there. Let people know you guys are still around and about. Attend school functions; go to your local Chamber of Commerce “get togethers;” talk to the folks at church. Let people know who you are, what you do, how you can help THEM, too. Do good stuff. This goes triple if things at your work start to look shaky. Do not hide. Don’t let anyone hide.

New Product Development:

Companies look ahead and if they are smart, do the stuff that needs doing to position themselves for the next wave up. Corning pays the scientists and engineers to cast their minds into the river of the future and you and your family members can do that too. Talk to your kids – find out their dreams. I know people find it funny when I write: “Be a patriot: take a degree in accountancy,” but it’s true – have everyone think about what is good for the country AND for themselves and talk about ‘how do we get there?” If you have college or education benefits at work – USE them. If they will allow you to use them for other family members, then do so. Explore programs that might be available at your children’s schools – perhaps there is a tech high school and one of your kids is technically inclined. Don’t allow all the chitchat about college to get in your child’s way – go talk to the people and find out what they’ve got and how your kids can take advantage.

Be a creative thinker. CAD-based machinists in my area START at $40,000 a year and our local Vo-Tech high school trains for that. In some areas, they are so hungry for them, the companies will hire them and then pay for college for them to move on in the technical field.

Use the internet, books and tapes from the library and learn new stuff – invest in yourself and in members of your family. Perhaps you will make a mistake – perhaps learning some particular computer program will not help you when we come out of this, but the more you do it, the better your chances of having the products that will sell when we come out the other end of this tunnel. Every product development that Corning does is not a hit “out of the park” – think about this that way.

Another thing is – if you have a small business and need money, you need to look for money. I realize that the meme out there is “there is no money.” Here’s a story:

The DH and I were working on the house once when the kids were little. We’d just gotten started and had paid the first payment to the contractor when I lost my job. I remember coming home that day and realizing that the contractor had picked that day to rip the back of the house off and dig a 15 foot hole in the back for a new basement, which was now filled with water. I put my head on the steering wheel of the car and wept. At dinner that night, the DH and I were in a panic: How could we possibly get a loan from a bank now that I had no job? All that stood between us and the great outdoors was a big blue tarp.

A small voice from a chair next to us piped up, “Ask Grandma and Grandpa – they have money.” Our 5-year old had cut through the muck and mire to the nub of the issue – we just had to find someone with money. There are all sorts of people out there who have money and who have been getting shittier returns from the market for a long time.

Your job, if you need money for a new business, to expand your business, etc. is to find those people. Go back and see: Advertising and Marketing. You need to meet and find people who a) have money to invest, b) are willing to invest locally and c) are willing to invest in YOU and your family to do whatever it is you want to do. Don’t be shy and don’t think they aren’t out there because believe it or not, they are. Just go to the internet and do a search on “angels” – they are out there and they are looking for a better return and better control than they can find in the market. In your case, you need to find your local versions of angels – believe me, they are out there.

Above all – FDR and Frank Herbert (Dune)were right: FEAR IS the mind-killer. Now is not a time for fear: It is a time for thinking and planning and doing.

(originally published at Oxdown Gazette)