The credit card companies hurt us but we should bear at least some of the responsibility when we find ourselves deep in debt. One of the ways we get into trouble financially is chasing technology. I have certainly been guilty of this. I always want what is on the horizon. I am actually typing this post on a phone that cost better than $400.00 and if I am not using that phone I have the choice of a couple of laptops. One of them has a touch screen I can write on. I can certainly make up excuses as to why I need each of these devices. From time to time I have to remind myself to be careful what I am doing.

I remember a time before I had credit cards. That was a time before digital photography as well. I used to develop my own film and had an old contact printer my Great Uncle had built. ( I still have that old contact printer). I didn’t, however, have an enlarger and I wanted one desperately. One day I had an idea. I took a Quaker Oatmeal box and cut a hole in the bottom. I put this round box over the white bulb. There are two bulbs in a contact printer and one of them is a “safe light” while the other one is a white light used to expose the film. I taped the negative I wanted to enlarge into the back of my 35 mm camera and with the back open I placed the camera on top of the oatmeal box. I placed washrags around the back of the camera to keep stray light out. I had the lid to the contact printer open and I added a support to the other side opposite the lid. I put a piece of wax paper between the support and the lid to the contact printer. I taped a piece of photographic paper up to the wax paper and I exposed that paper to the light through the negative. I had made a homemade enlarger. It was by no means a high quality printer but I had done something that cost me nearly nothing. I still have the image in my mind of that first print… It was a picture of my late brother sleeping.

Why do we have to spend so much money on things that bring us little or no pleasure? If we can just get back to the basics and do without for a short period of time we could command a salary that would support us without paying thousands of dollars in interest that could be used for our own benefit. I have a lot of ideas that could be used to keep us out of trouble but we have to be involved in our own destiny and we have to want to improve our lives. There is no magic bullet. Lets do what is necessary to free ourselves from this debt slavery. Thanks for listening.

Gary R Turner