Turns out my mom is a genius. This is not all that surprising, really, since she grew up during the depression, and was weaned on hard knocks. Pshaw. To hear her talk, you would think her pacifier, if her family could only have afforded one, would have been whittled from wood taken from a tree in their own back yard. But in these days of the credit crisis that has evidently swept the world, I find that my mother's words my whole life are coming back to me, and she was right all along.

My entire financial education at my mother's knee consisted of exactly one mantra - live within your means. Do not spend more than you have. Eschew credit, except for a mortgage, and even then, make sure it is sensible, because, and this is the important part, You Just Never Know. Like I said, she is looking like a genius now, isn't she?

I heard on the news just this morning that we are going to have to learn to live without the easy credit that Americans, and people across the globe, have learned to count on. Is it just me, or is it a little ridiculous to imagine that you can go on indefinitely buying everything you own, or to be more accurate, everything of which you are currently in possession, on credit?

The morning anchor, about my own age, was breathlessly explaining the situation, with the major illustration of this new reality being that you will no longer be able to "buy" anything, like a car, without any money down. We won't be able to buy furniture today that we don't have to pay for until two years from next spring, and Christmas is going to be a little more sparse under the tree. The credit card offers which have inundated our mailboxes will be forthcoming no more, and the days of borrowing more than the value of the item, like home equity loans for 125% of value, are over.

Now that is a concept that leaves me shaking my head, I have to be honest. I never could make sense of how taking out a loan for 125% of the value of anything made sense in the first place. Isn't that sort of like having a dish of ice cream that is 125% full? Everything above the rim of the bowl doesn't really belong to you, because it runs out as soon as it melts, and you can only eat so much before that happens. And then where are you?

Credit seems to me to be very similar, but what do I know? I have a 30 year conventional mortgage for which I am, according to the so-called financial experts, paying way too much in interest. Never mind that my payments, even with insurance and exorbitant property taxes because I live in the very special Leawood, Kansas are still less than the rent in most apartments around town. [By the way, that would be sarcasm you were reading there. I don't think Leawood is special, I think it's silly, mostly, but it's where I landed, and I'm not in the mood to sell out and move at this particular juncture.]

Funny story about house buying. A few years back, well quite a few, now, I admit, but anyway. I was perfectly content living in my little starter house in Overland Park, and would happily have stayed right there until removed by the coroner when I was dead and gone. Overland Park was the original compromise with my then spouse, because I started out looking in Olathe, which has some of the least expensive territory in the county, but he refused to consider living there. Olathe wasn't quite good enough for him. Too blue collar, and working class, it seemed.

My ex-husband, Mr. Pretentious, simply HAD to live somewhere swankier, because it's all about the look, you know. He never was one to look beneath the surface of anything, as long as it looked good on the top. So anyway, that little house in Overland Park wasn't quite good enough, and since Leawood was the most upscale [read hoity-toity] city in the metro area, he insisted, over my objections, that we move to Leawood.

Fast forward a few years, he leaves me for his new life, and ultimately buys himself a house. Imagine my mirth when I learned said new house was in, wait for it, Olathe. That's right. Suddenly, in another hilarious twist of fate, I am living in Leawood, which means nothing to me, [I usually tell people I live in Stanley, the little burg that Overland Park swallowed on its quest to gobble up everything between here and the Oklahoma state line,] while he is living in Olathe, which wasn't good enough for us, but apparently is just fine with him. How the mighty have fallen, right?

Anyway, getting back to my point. Does any store still have a layaway department? I'll bet my kids don't even know what it means, or how it worked. To them, layaway is a sign at the back of WalMart that helped you locate the rest rooms in the back of the store.

But when I was younger, planning my wedding and my grown-up life, I used layaway to buy everything that I needed to stock my first kitchen. I got dishes on a blue light special at K-Mart, then put them on layaway and paid for them over many weeks, until that exciting day when I made the final payment and took them home. Do kids today have any idea of the thrill of having saved and scrimped and waited for the moment when the thing they have wanted is finally theirs? There is a lot to be said for having to wait for what you want.

My first nice camera was purchased the same way. Made the last payment the week before my wedding, in fact. I had timed it just right so I would be able to take pictures at that once in a lifetime event. I wonder what would have happened if I had missed a payment? Do you suppose I would have delayed the wedding, thereby giving myself a little more time to come to my senses, and then it might never have happened at all? Of course, then I would be without my own personal version of Abbott and Costello, and the world would be a much less friendly place for me, so perhaps it's best that things happened as they did, after all.

My mother would never approve of a loan for 125% of the value of anything. She would look at me in disbelief if I had been so stupid, and would get that disappointed look with her lips pursed sort of tight, and I would know I had blown it. It's not worth it to disappoint your own mother, so I was never even tempted, even if I had the proclivity, which I didn't.

I didn't win many arguments in my marriage, but one of the few I did win was to buy a house within my means. And when I refinanced after my divorce a few years ago, I once again went conservative, because that is in my nature, even though I had a lot of pressure from the mortgage brokers to throw caution to the wind and jump in with both feet.

I had one guy telling me that I could cash out all my equity and then I would have the tax deduction, and I could live on the cash. When I tried to point out that there is a price to be paid for that maneuver, which is definitely more costly than any supposed tax benefit I might have received, he was bewildered, because he hadn't encountered anyone who thought that way, I guess. Needless to say, I did not go with Mr. Countrywide for the ultimate mortgage.

I am somewhat confused, to be honest, why the concept of living within our means is so revolutionary. Should it require talking heads and pundits on every channel to walk us through it? Surely there is someone outside of my own extended family who lives on their actual income, or lack thereof. My mother and her siblings cannot be the only ones to drum those tough lessons into little skulls that depended on them.

I do know the dark side, though, to be completely honest. I was married to a materialistic junkie, someone who never saw an offer for cheap credit that he couldn't embrace. He bought everything on credit, and couldn't see the connection between payments and interest and being broke, mostly because he was not in charge of the family budget. But I saw it, and it used to keep me up nights. He would spend, while I tried to save. He would get credit cards without telling me, to buy stuff he hid in the trunk of his car or at work or somewhere that he spent more time than he did at home. He wasn't a shopaholic, he was a social climber, but the net result was too much credit for too little income.

He also abhorred banks, because you weren't making enough on the deal if you put money into them, and every time I set up a savings account, he found a way to spend three times as much. It was frustrating to me, having been raised on the concept of never owing anyone for anything, to constantly be in debt to everyone for everything. Especially since rainy days are the norm in my life, and I never go anywhere without an umbrella.

But it does give me some insight into the current situation, and why people who have never lived any other way are panicked at the idea that they will no longer be able to buy anything they want on the whim of the moment. If you are used to having everything the second you think of it, it's tough to wait, to wish, and to save.

The good news, and there is some, is that tightened credit ultimately enhances both solvency and character, and this country could use a little of both. I am watching the transformation in my own household, and I think if our experience is any indication, the country will be okay. My kids, especially my daughter, grew up with too much easy money available. Every wish could be fulfilled the moment it appeared, and nothing was ever out of range. They both had too much stuff, and as always in such situations, the level of appreciation was commensurate with the lack of effort in the procurement.

These days, my son goes to school and has a job that takes up any free time, and he pays as much of his own bills as he can. My daughter went out looking for a job on her own last weekend, because she wants to be able to help me out with her own fun money. While she is doing it for me, I don't think she realizes that the long term benefit will be for her. Once you start to work, you learn the value of money, because you associate the amount of work with how much a thing costs. When you weigh that against the importance of your whim, it teaches you real values.

It is value that has been missing in our fast moving culture, I think. We have the stuff, but have no idea of the value of much of anything, because we haven't worked for it, we have just charged forward. I believe, in the end, we will be better off for being more fiscally conservative, although there will be a lot of pain in the meantime, and I realize it's not going to be much fun. I wonder if my children will save twist ties and bread bags, to the amusement of their children some day? Because my mother does, and she is obviously a genius, so perhaps I'd better clear some space in my drawer myself.