Financial Maturity - What's the Problem?!!

People ask me, why are you so concerned about financial maturity or money maturity.
It's one of my pet interests I guess. I've always been interested in the affects of money and people's lives.

I worked as a financial analyst in the early 90s' and learned a great deal of lessons from administering $110 million in debt for the company I worked for. At the time, the company was paying 12% interest on their loan. That's the equivalent of $13.2 million per year in interest or $1.1 million per month.

I scratched my head and said to myself, this company could buy alot of assets or salaries for $1.1 million each month. I learned about debt in a big way at that point.

I then asked myself what happens to people when they're in debt over their heads. So much of their disposable income goes to paying off the banks interest charges.
Because I was so horrified by the amount of interest companies and people were paying, I started to ask myself if these interest payments were really necessary? ie. were people and companies buying stuff they didn't need based on emotions? If you're not careful you can easily rack up some debilitating debt.

Yesterday I was reading another blog where the guy was talking about his debt problems and payments. He mentioned that part of his debt came about because he "HAD TO" purchase a TV surround system for his home.

I'll put it to you this way... if you're complaining about your debts, you DON'T NEED TO purchase a TV surround system for your house. That is not financial maturity.

It's my little pet theory that lack of emotional control leads to financial problems. If you can't control your desires, you're always going to be in trouble.

That's why I like to write about financial maturity. I'm hoping that maybe some might learn from my experiences and get better emotional/financial control over their situation.