Han Solo has a debt problem: More PF advice from Star Wars
Posted
Mar 11 2008, 03:06 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Han Solo has too much debt. Darth Vader "wants it all, now!" Yoda didn't save for a rainy day and certainly didn't anticipate that he'd live to be 900. Why else, Monevator asks, would he be dining on pulped vines in a leaky hut?
Monevator goes where another personal-finance blogger we've featured has gone before -- wait, that's another space opera, but you catch our drift -- and writes about personal-finance lessons to be gained from Star Wars.
In "Who's your Star Wars money hero?" Monevator examines the financial blunders of our favorite second-trilogy characters, gives them directions for success, and also recommends PF blogs and books to read. (Monevator rightly, we believe, stays away from what he calls "the Trilogy of Shame.")
Let's start with Han Solo. "With great contacts, low overheads and the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, you'd imagine Solo's got it made, right? Think again," Monevator writes. Debt is Han's downfall. After all, "a store card debt of just 1,000 galactic credits at 18% interest with minimum payments of 2% will take nearly 20 years to pay off." Han needs some long-term financial goals.
Darth Vader has got to learn that building wealth requires patience. Monevator writes, "We all get frustrated when our career isn't going fast enough or our savings are stalling, which is why we need a realistic plan to stop us straying to the Dark Side."
And Yoda? He obviously has some catching up to do. Monevator says, "As a rough rule of thumb, start saving half your age as a percentage of your annual salary, every year."
