Caravaggio Narcissus painting

Caravaggio Narcissus paintingCaravaggio Madonna di Loreto paintingAndrea Mantegna Adoration of the Magi painting
The New York Times ran a story today that says the next consumer crisis is credit cards — a sobering fact in a nation that has racked up massive amounts of credit card debt.
Unfortunately, when times get hard, many people turn to credit cards to help them make ends meet … and only dig themselves into a deeper hole.
I’ve been through this myself, buying things on credit when I had no other way to pay for them. I’m not talking about plasma TVs, but about necessities like medical bills. As a result, I dug myself deep into debt, and one of the biggest decisions of my life\ was easy. It took some hard decisions, some sacrifices, and a commitment to change my spending habits.
I highly recommend that people get out of debt and stay out of debt, especially as the economy hits difficult times. It’s not a good position to be in if you lose your job while burdened with lots of debt. Better: become debt-free, with a good emergency fund and a small budget. That’s recession-proof personal