An Illustration of Buyer's Remorse by Meat Loaf WRT Dave Ramsey

I was listening to some "classic" music last night and was enjoying Meat Loaf's first album, "Bat out of Hell". I got to the song, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and I was kind of belting it out b/c, hey, it's a classic. I got to the fun part, "STOP right there!"... and she goes into this whole spiel about

"Do you love me?
Will you love me forever?
Do you need me?
Will you never leave me?
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life?
Will you take me away and will you make me your wife?"

And she goes on and on and ON about it, almost ad nauseum, kind of like a high pressure sales pitch from a salesman who knows they have you right where they want you. So Meat Loaf, comes back with the appropriate response:

"Let me sleep on it
Baby, baby let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I'll give you my answer in the morning"

At that point, Oscar blurted out in laughter, "Sounds like he's been listening to Dave Ramsey". It had me ROLLING(!) I tell you! LOL! You see, in one of Dave Ramsey's classes in FPU (#6 "Buyer Beware") he talks about the importance of waiting to buy b/c of impulse. How over 60% of people have buyer's remorse over buying something on impulse the day before so they need to sleep on the decision and take time to thing on if this is the best usage of your money, you need to window shop, compare prices, and you need to figure out if it will be worth it in the long run.

Well, poor Meat Loaf does rather well, until the pressure starts to get to him and he just can't take it anymore and succumbs to the impulse purchase and regrets it almost immediately afterward.

"I couldn't take it any longer
Lord I was crazed
And when the feeling came upon me
Like a tidal wave
I started swearing to my God and on my mother's grave
That I would love you to the end of time
I swore that I would love you to the end of time!

So now I'm praying for the end of time
To hurry up and arrive
Cause if I gotta spend another minute with you
I don't think that I can really survive
I'll never break my promise or forget my vow
But God only knows what I can do right now
I'm praying for the end of time
It's all that I can do
Praying for the end of time, so I can end my time with you!!!"

That's kind of like the finance deal (of your life) that you can't wait to get out of! The impulse buy is the irrational rush of "I HAVE TO HAVE IT NOWWWWW!!!" and then the next couple of hours or day or week you start realizing that it was definitely NOT the deal of a lifetime, so you're just praying for it to end so you can be free of the unintended consequences of giving in to your inner child.

Meat Loaf really should have slept on it before making that "ultimate purchase" he can't get out of and is wholly miserable in. One moment of fun, pleasure and/or impulse can mess with the rest of your life. I can guarantee if he would have slept on it, he would have walked away and said, "Nah! I don't want to be stuck in a deal I can't get out of", b/c you can never see 20/20 when you're in heat of the moment and that inner child is putting its fingers in your ears and repeating the mantra, "I WANT, I WANT, I WANT...!" in order to distract you into forgetting your resolve.

"Paradise By the Dashboard Light" is the perfect illustration of buyer's remorse from an impulsive inner child. LOL!