What Would You Do if You Found Out Your Spouse Was Secretly on that Credit Crack?

In a letter to TheSimpleDollar.com, Archie writes:

In our marriage, my wife and I have agreed not to open financial statements addressed to each other. We supposedly did this so that we would be able to hide things like gift purchases from each other. Whenever we talked about our finances, we just talked about balances on accounts and didn’t worry about individual items on each other’s bills.

Reader Question: How Do I Keep From Overspending?

Any questions you have related to finance that you would like T.I.W.U.B.com to answer, simply send it to thisiswhyubroke@gmail.com!

Reader Question #2: How do I keep from overspending?

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say I have a full blown spending addiction, but I would like to figure out a way not to be so tempted to spend all of my money every month. I do notice I spend more when I’m with friends shopping vs alone but alone its still a problem. Do you have any tips?” -Nicole

Answer: Although having the influence of good friends who aren’t addicted to impressing people definitely helps, ultimately, it depends on you. And in my opinion, since advertisers and the government has gone to war on our wallets trying to keep us opening them up, we have to go to war as well and attempt to keep them closed. Besides obviously destroying all of your credit cards (which I would do and do it ASAP), here are three things you’ll need to do just that:

Financial Question from One of Our Readers

Justin from Facebook writes:

So, basically there’s no sense in me trying to fix my credit/ pay down old debts and debt collectors until I make more dough correct? If im livin paycheck to paycheck now..then there really aint no way right?

A couple things you need to know from someone who is currently working with close to 500 people on debt management:

1. Fixing your credit- There is no such thing as “fixing your credit” and there definitely isnt a such thing as a “good credit score”. Credit was developed so that you couldnt “fix” it. Its a system to keep you trapped in a cycle of dependency and late payments. Noone in the lending industry makes money off people who pay off loans early and they damn sure dont like when you pay on time. The only solution is to be smart about how you treat your finances and live within your means so you can exit the game entirely. By doing so you will see just how easy it is to avoid credit altogether, stay out of debt, stop paying interest payments on everything you use and also become wealthy while most of your friends stay broke.