I blog about Glee because I love this stupid show and actually fully intend on being a cast member one day. If you don’t watch it already, well set your Tivo because it’s awesome.
Tonight’s episode centered around Kurt (who is the only openly gay guy in his school) and the school bully, Karofsky, who is a homosexual but is in the closet.
In fact, Kurt is the only person who knows Karofsky is gay due to an awkward kiss between the two. (I’m no homophobe, but has there ever been a gay kiss on TV that wasn’t awkward? Maybe that’s just me.) Karofsky is so worried about anyone else learning of his sexuality that he threatened to kill Kurt if he told anyone. Kurt was so scared of Karofsky that he feared for his life and decided to transfer schools to ensure his safety.
To put it bluntly, Kurt ran away from his problem.
I’m not saying that is necessarily a bad thing. I believe there are certain situations in life where the best answer is to run away.
Financially, whenever you owe someone money, “running away” is always an option. I recently helped a friend deal with a situation where he had old medical bills from college that were hurting his credit report. He had to decide whether to pay them or just let them go away.
My friend, we’ll call him “Tickle Me Dough Face”, was riding his bike during his freshman year of college and had the audacity to get hit by a car (stupid college kid). The cops came and said “Tickle Me Dough Face, you’re gonna have to go to the hospital to get fixed up, and you’re gonna be on the hook for all the medical bills.” So Tickle Me Dough Face racked up about $1000 in medical bills and didn’t have insurance or money to pay them.
The statute of limitations in Texas is four years, so he can’t legally be sued to collect the debt in about a year. However, it will remain on his credit report for seven years unless he pays it off, thus making it very difficult to build a solid credit score.
After talking with this friend, Tickle Me Dough Face has decided to pay off the debt. I like this decision because it will not only help his credit, but I also think it’s the right thing to do. It sucks that he got hit by a car and had to pay medical bills, but he did receive services and didn’t pay for them.
The nice thing is he can probably pay somewhere around 20-50% due to the fact that the debt has been around for about three years and the collections agency holding the debt probably only paid a few pennies per dollar of the debt. Yay for saving money!
I actually have a rule on my personal mission statement that states the following: “I will pay on any debt I owe or any bet I lose.” Even though getting hit by a car seems like a crappy way to accumulate debt, I think I would still feel a personal responsibility to pay the medical bills. Maybe that’s because I have weird morals.
For today’s Thousandaire Question: Have you ever considered running away from a financial problem? If so, what decision did you end up making?
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
I am currently trying to ignore a huge elephant in my blogging room. My host (Host Monster) is awful, my sites are down again for the 6th time in 4-5 weeks, and I have been too lazy and busy to deal with it. I’m going to try to build up the lasting motivation to switch hosts by the end of this weekend…
I had the same issue. I had iPage and I hated them, so I finally switched to HostGator. I’m pretty happy with the switch, although if my blog ever got really big I think I’d have to get a dedicated server. Good luck with the switch!
A. The gay kisses on Brothers & Sisters are not awkward. Scotty and Kevin are in love.
B. I think a lot of young women, myself included, avoid thinking about finances, thinking whatever problems they get themselves into will be taken care of when Prince Charming comes along. I realized a few years ago (before getting myself into TOO much trouble), that whether he’s coming or not, I am responsible for my financial situation and fully capable of handling it maturely. I will never run away (or even look away) from any financial problems again!
A. I only watch Glee and House, so I don’t encounter gay kisses often.
B. I think it’s also important to understand finances at a high level because even if you do find your knight in shining armor, something tragic may happen where he’s no longer around to take care of things. I’m glad you’re starting to learn. 🙂
My financial problems haven’t been bad enough to run away from.
I know someone who ran up $200,000 markers in one night at Las Vegas casinos. He was a regular for 4-5 years and went on a losing spree one night. After this night, he quit going to Vegas and never paid back the markers. I think this was the right choice. This was about 15 years ago.
In my opinion, he lost that $200,000, and he should pay it back. You can be damn sure if he had won $200k, he wouldn’t have given it back.
I would always pay my debt, luckily I never really had debt other than car and home mortgage debt.
I think it’s best to pay off your debt, after all typically the debt is for service rendered or to purchase something…
I think gay kisses aren’t awkward if the said kisses are really gay. But I’m around gay men all the time because I’m a big faghag so I’m probably byist.
As for running away from your finances, or obligations, I’ve been guilty. Especially of medical debt like your friend. I have a bill from when I was 20 I still haven’t paid but ever since I’ve been on my journey at 23, all new medical debt has been paid off as with any new debts. Sometimes I think, well it’s already been so long but I know eventually I’m going to have to call and settle it.
Wow, this is the same dilemma that I am facing. I’ve got credit card debt, but its difficult to pay your creditors given the difficulty to earn more money quickly. The creditors continue to call – they continue to remind you of the dire situation. I hope things can get better. I like your advice.