... manage your lifestyle to fit your income.
Noah Kemp
He can’t prove it, but Kalona resident Noah Kemp said that if you do without extra things in life for three years, you are ahead of the game financially.
“I can’t document this,” he said. “But you can be ahead of the ball over people who maximize their borrowing limits. You cannot borrow your way out of debt.”
Kemp, 62, is a local business owner who said managing finances is a necessary part of life, but it doesn’t have to be a complicated one.
“If your out-go exceeds your income, then you have a problem,” he said. “Most people try to manage their income to try and fit their lifestyle, and that’s backwards. You need to manage your lifestyle to fit your income.”
Kemp said when he was younger, it wasn’t so hard to not spend money. There wasn’t much to begin with, he said.
“And when my friends were going out to eat, I couldn’t so often,” Kemp said. “I didn’t suffer.”
Kemp said as he got older and was building his business, he made financial decisions carefully and slowly.
“You have to be prepared for opportunities,” he said. “The last shop I opened, I looked for three years for the right opportunity. There was a time where I was afraid to take the risk and I lost phenomenal opportunities. It was a lesson, and no one ever said education is cheap.”
Kemp said he worries that there is no financial management education for young people. The only people teaching are telling kids how to borrow, he said.
“I’m scared for them,” he said. “Kids expect what their parents have today, and it doesn’t work that way.”
Just knowing how to handle money isn’t enough, though, he said. Kemp said faith has gotten him through many of life’s ups and downs, even if there were no dollar signs attached.
“I have a great faith in God, and I think with that faith I have to credit some of that success, if it is success,” he said.
— Kathryn Fiegen
