How to say good-bye to debt …FOREVER!
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Imagine I tried to sell you a product right now. ANY product. I tell you all about it, show you the price tag, and then I tell you that the price is actually 15% MORE than the sticker said – would you buy it?
I bet not.
But that’s what we do every time we use a credit card to pay for a new couch or put our home renovations on our Line of Credit. We are spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars MORE than if we just paid cash.
The credit card industry made over ONE HUNDRED BILLION dollars last year on interest and fees. You guys! That’s over one hundred billion of OUR dollars, money we didn’t need to spend.
Want my number one intentional finance life hack?
STOP PAYING EXTRA MONEY FOR THE THINGS YOU BUY.
One day, not that long ago, we turned around and realized we owed fifty thousand dollars to credit card companies and banks. Not to mention the money we both still owed on our student loans. Ouch. We were barely making minimum payments and struggling to make any traction on getting ahead with our finances. Sound familiar?
Moving forward, we knew we needed to make a change. So, we made a commitment to ourselves. We were going to stop using our credit cards and PAY OFF ALL OF OUR DEBTS. In other words, we were getting weird!
The key here is you have to STOP charging things to your credit cards. You won’t get out of debt if you keep creating more.
Changing the way you think about debt (debt = bad) and working hard to get rid of it, (no debt = good) is the most amazing thing you can do for yourself, for your family, and your future. It is time to say good-bye to debt!
There are lots of “Get out of debt quick!” posts out there. I don’t want to discourage you, but unless you have the winning lotto numbers for next week or you are expecting great-uncle Bartholomew to will you a large sum of money, there isn’t a quick way to do this.
Not only that (oh boy, don’t stop reading!), it’s necessary for you to go through this work to change the way you think about debt and how you live your life with the intention to make your money work for you! There’s no sense in getting OUT of debt just to turn around and climb right back IN.
Okay – are you still reading? Yay! High fives to you if you are considering doing this work and changing your life to reach for more!
Now that you have decided that you CAN say good-bye to debt forever let’s break down HOW.
Say Good-Bye to Debt
- List all of your debts, smallest to biggest.
- Pay the minimum payment on all of those debts – except the smallest.
- Put every single extra dollar you can find in your budget onto the smallest debt until it is paid off. (Set up a zero-based budget to make sure you are getting the most out of every dollar you earn.)
- Repeat until you have paid off all the debts on the list!
It’s not complicated. But it does take commitment and a bit of hard work! I promise it will be SO worth it if you do it!!
My inspiration for our debt-free journey comes from Dave Ramsey’s book Total Money Makeover. I definitely recommend grabbing a copy and following Dave’s financial advice!
