America’s credit card debt has surged past $1 trillion, and it’s more than just an economic statistic — it’s a reflection of how far we’ve drifted from a common-sense understanding of money. The root cause? I think we’ve lost touch with the physical experience of cash.
It wasn’t so long ago that people got paid in cash or took their paychecks to the bank and withdrew what they needed for the week. Purchases were made by counting out bills and coins — an exercise that made spending tangible. You saw what you had, and when it was gone, it was gone. That process alone instilled discipline. Today, most of us get paid by direct deposit and spend by swiping a piece of plastic. The experience of money has become abstract and so has our sense of limits. Just try and check out at a retail store with cash and see if the clerk can make change without reading a screen.
I think that the disconnect starts at an early age. Many kids today don’t earn allowances or work part-time jobs; instead, they’re handed a debit or credit card with little understanding of what it represents. They miss the essential lesson: money comes from work and effort, not entitlement. When kids do chores and earn a weekly allowance in cash, they learn the relationship between work, saving, and spending. They learn the between wanting something and affording it. That’s how financial values are formed.
Unfortunately, too many adults today spend without that work-effort awareness. Credit card companies make it way too easy to spend way beyond your means. And the credit card companies are more than happy with this model, they are collecting billions in interest and fees from those who carry balances month to month. The bottom line: we’ve made money invisible, and in doing so, we’ve made debt inevitable. If we want to reverse this dangerous trend, we need to return to the basics.
