Sunday, December 07, 2008

Cincinnati NAMjA's Christmas Savings Plan

The last time that our country has seen this much financial distress the American people were getting ready to be thrown into the midst of The Great Depression. During that time, our "traditional" values were a bit more modest leading to the recipe for saving money and surviving the inevitable economic meltdown were more prescribed. Father's working hard and mothers working even harder to make ends meet to feed, clothe and house their abundant amount of children, while stashing the little extra money that they earned wither under their mattress or in their ice boxes were common place.

Today, simply hiding your money away out of sight will do nothing for you in the long run but give cold hard cash when you finally decide to spend it, in some cases even depreciating in value in the process. The money saving methods of the 1920's are just that, depressed, recessed and very much a thing of the past, a relic of a by-gone era. The nation's traditional values have morphed into a plethora open ended opportunities, forging a way to unprecedented economic growth, leading to financial security.

As a gay man living in the Queen City (no pun intended) during the holiday season, I have found that my predisposed love of trend-setting style and sense of entitlement has caused me to forgo trying to save money for the future to make way for the immediacy of now.

It looks as though I am not alone.

A few months ago Harris Interactive conducted a survey that found that about 50 percent of gay adults keep up with the latest styles and trends as opposed to only 38 percent of heterosexual adults.

Over the next week I will reveal four simple ways in which I was able to stretch my paycheck to ensure that everyone of your "fam" (faux and true) is satisfied come the time when St. Nick knocks at your door this year without sacrificing my guilty pleasures.

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