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This iPhone app idea man is the kind of guy who likes oatmeal in the morning. I am not flashy and I am not really a geeky type. I am simply a dad who loves his kids and wants the best for them. This makes me like most other parents out there, except that I created an app for their telephone to help them manage credit card debt. It is called Debt Dog, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Ever worried about my kids, I am especially concerned with their inability to manage money. This strange obsession I have might exists because of the way I view my job as dad. The dadness in me was tuning in to the recent irregularities that has suddenly appeared in these young adults, AKA my kids. Or maybe it is the regular, normal everyday habit of buying things with no money that is bothering me lately.

Even though they constantly tell me, everybody has credit cards and everybody charges stuff, it does not placate me. Yes, I concede they are correct, but with their inability to manage credit card debt, many of these same people are losing homes and have become prisoners to slavery because they have no clue when it comes to spending or managing credit.

As a father, I am often neurotic, babbling over stale cornflakes, and this leaves me time to myself. Kids scatter, my wife pecks my cheek on her way out. Alone, I am able to conclude that this lack of money management running rampant within my kids really comes down to a poor education that should have come from dad. Freud, if he were around, would point all fingers to their mother, and I consider discussing this with my wife, but perhaps not.

How else does a parent grade themselves except through the performance of their kids? I know. You think I am setting myself up for failure, and maybe so, but it is the only real report card I have. Besides, their mother would never believe she was the culprit in this sham to go to the store and to get things without money. This is mans work. A dads job to enlighten young adults to the pitfalls of credit card debt.

When I was a young man, I wanted to be a pilot, but poor vision left me grounded and with the arrival of kids, I finally figured out that I was supposed to be a dad. Then, at some point early on I really wanted to be a good dad. Now, with my kids moving toward impoverishment, I think I am failing at being a dad so I had to act. Quickly.

It is all because of my daughter. I am certain the boy will follow her toward debtors prison, but she is blazing the way. A recent college graduate, she is preparing for her new life, which includes shopping for new furniture. Blessed with a good job that seems like it will provide for her, she is making grown up decisions now. The fact that credit card debt is entering the picture caused my oatmeal to curdle and my hair, what is left, to stand straight up. Next stage, I am told, is hair follicles going brittle before falling out of my scalp. Kids and their credit card decisions will do that to you.

Shopping, an everlasting sport, culminated just before Super Bowl Sunday, after weeks of perusing the ads and measuring tiny rooms in the new apartment. As you might guess, I was not asked to attend, my sneakers long retired, but my wife, a veteran wide receiver, stepped in weeks before to aid our daughter, often perusing new and trendy stores while our daughter was working.

As a dad, my role was defined long ago. I am always caught between keeping the bad guys away and letting the kids learn on their own. My wife worries and I stand by, usually wondering whats happening, but she normally intervenes at just the right minute, and the crisis usually passes with no permanent injuries.

But not when it comes to credit cards and shopping. This is man-duty to step in and curtail fun. A dads job to reconcile that Happy Hour and good times do not equate to debt. This responsibility I have been given has contributed to the nervous stomach I live with. That is why I eat plain stuff, like Tumms.

The furniture shopping spree occurred in three stages. Like all good field endeavors, there was a planning session, which was mostly filled with joyous conversations about the best, often unknown furniture stores they would visit. Stage two occurred almost instantly.

Virtually no time had passed between planning the idea and starting the car. No time for the idea to gel and no play book. Certainly no practice. Warm up? Nah. Decide and go. I dreaded this phase and knew it was only a matter of time before the ultimate purchase. I waited weeks when, suddenly, like spring baseball, the day arrived.

One sunny afternoon, after the rains have quietly left, I learned it was time to buy. This is when I was invited to the party. No dip. No chips and since the decisions had already been made, I had the feeling it was only an afterthought that I should be included. Of course, I was not really invited in the true sense. I had no idea what she was buying. Sofa or love seat? Tables? Do they have chairs? Do you need chairs? Probably only because I was in the room when they announced their decision was the only reason I was included.

But I had already been busy. Little did they know that my job was to shock the women in my family. I had been working on a mobile phone app that would give them the down and dirty on credit card debt. If they could actually see how much money they were spending it would transform them. They would yelp. Their hair would also straighten and if they continued their evil ways, they too would be bald.

I had the idea while drooling cream of wheat. The Debt Dog would have a bulldog icon right there on the telephone. Press it and you would get all the information necessary to stop charging and I knew they would bust out the scissors and cut up all the plastic in the world. No math. My daughter and math. No. this would have to be easy.It must be fun and it has to transform debtors.

That day, I was invited to drive the truck to help celebrate the gala event of picking up the furniture and watching my daughter pay for it. Already I had loaded the Debt Dog on her telephone, but she had no idea what it meant-this bulldog icon looking thing. I told her it was a social thing I was working on and had no ill feelings about my misconduct. Rather proud of my idea to circumvent her decision to a life of slavery, I would wait for the right moment before springing it into action.

The store was ready for us. The salesman working on his day off and why not? Commission, my man. My daughter was beaming. Her new furniture. The apartment. Her dad driving the truck. At the counter, I watched and listened as the figures made it real. Couch. Refrigerator. Dining. Tables. An ottoman. My God. Does she need all that now?

The total was $3286, and this is after her good customer discount.

Of course, she was pre-approved for in store credit. Installment credit. Yikes. the worst kind for a credit report. Thank God she looked at me and handed me the contract to read. Yes. I really had taught her well. Still silent, I perused the contract. The interest rate was 23%. Gulp.

The pain in my stomach was threatening because the bad guys had arrived once again, and though sidelined, I had my trusty assistant. I did not dare say anything, but instead reached for her telephone.

I entered the interest rate, then the purchase amount. The two women, the only two in the world I loved this deeply were watching me. I hit the calculate button and smiled as the sound of a toilet flushed. The screen changed and instantly I had my figures. I looked at the salesman. Bad man. He knew it, but he had greed and lust on his side. All I had was an electronic assistant. Who would prevail?

I handed the phone back to my daughter pointing out the obvious on the screen. Her eyes went wide and my stomach did a summersault with a prideful jump. My wife looked over and the shock was evident. Finally, I showed the screen to the bad man and he knew he was doomed. My daughter almost cried as I stood in prideful silence.

$3286 in furniture would cost her $6290 and with a minimum payment of only $128 per month it would take her 162 months to pay off her furniture. Her kids would be in college before she paid for that imported junk.

Of course we could not let our daughter enslave herself to this tyranny, my wife told me. I agreed and even the bad man nodded. Mission accomplished I thought to myself as I watched my wife open her purse and pen a check to the furniture store.

The iTunes app store carries the Debt Dog in the Finance section for.99

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