If there's one thing this recession has taught me, it's that we need to get back to basics. I'm thinking about how my grandparents spent money.?First, they only spent what they had. They had cash for groceries.?Imagine that. If you got to the register and didn't have enough to pay the bill, you had to put something back. Many people use credit cards now for groceries and almost anything else.

Borrowing started with major purchases, like houses. There's no way most of us would ever be able to afford a house if we couldn't get a loan. Way back when, that meant saving up 20% of the purchase price, getting a 30-year fixed mortgage for the rest and paying it off someday. Now we borrow 95% or 97% and then refinance when we want to "take cash out" of our home.

As cars became a necessity in most cities, we started financing those. This is a riskier proposition, just because cars don't last as long as houses. Twenty years ago, most car loans were for three years. That means that if you saved up for three years, you could buy a brand new car outright. But who wants to scrimp and save and do without when you can just sign your name and get a car? Now that cars have become fancier and more expensive, the typical term is five years, and six year loans are readily available. Somewhere along the way, somebody thought up the lease. Now you could get a car for a lower monthly payment.

Now we've gone so far with this kind of thinking that it's hard to extricate ourselves. Many people have lost their homes because they got a loan they couldn't afford. They're in the middle of a car lease and will have nothing to show for all those payments when the lease is up. They won't pay for this month's groceries and other expenses until the credit card bill shows up next month.?Or worse, they'll make the minimum payment and let the charges carry over.

Wouldn't it be less stressful if we went back to the plan of only buying something when we can afford it? This process will take some time, discipline and planning.

As always, you should be on the lookout for good opportunities. The new Cash for Clunkers program may be a good opportunity to get ahead of the game on a car - if you're in just the right place.

If you have a older car that gets 18 mpg or less and it's getting close to the end of it's useful life (meaning it's starting to need more repairs than it's worth), you might be in the right spot. If your old car is worth more than $4,500, this is not a good deal for you. If you expect your car to continue to run reliably for quite a while, this is not a good deal for you. Instead, you should pretend that you have a car payment and put that money in a savings account each month instead.

If you've determined that it is time to trade in your clunker, find a new car that gets great gas mileage and qualifies for the program. Go with a fairly inexpensive model to keep the costs down. (Remember buying more than you can afford is what got us all so far off the right path.) Check out dealer incentives (and there are plenty out there right now), other government incentives like those for hybrids and compare prices. Check Consumer Reports to make sure you get a car that's going to last longer than the payments.