I am going to depart from my original posting plan and talk about debt with this post.
Recently, I received an email from a subscriber about her debt. She was drowning in debt and was asking for ideas to help her.
Here is the original email (obviously I am leaving name and contact information out.)
Subject: Extremely In Debt
I owe a 1st mortgage ($118k at 5.875%), a 2nd mortgage ($14.7k at 8.875%)and under $50k in credit card debt. How can I get out of debt? Thanks.
Unfortunately, many Americans are facing this same problem.
For those that are not congratulations! But getting into these debt problems are not all irresponsible spending habits on the part of the consumer. Some of this debt is for valid reasons.
Let me give you an example.
Several years ago I worked as a VP of Inbound Operations for a small Call Center Outsourcing company and things were going great financially. However, I hated my job. The people that I worked with were so passive aggressive and really had no business acumen that it was very difficult to manage with integrity and responsibility.
You see the leadership team was not honorable. This included the owners, the head of human resources and the person in charge of account services.
To make a long story short…One day I told my wife that I was going to fight for what I believed was right. Well this leadership team didn’t like it and ultimately the owner wanted me to fire somebody that didn’t deserve it.
I wouldn’t do it…
Bottom-line, they decided to fire me instead because I wouldn’t act as a puppet.
To make matters worse they gave me 2 months of severance. Well, when your a VP you deserve more but expecting the owners to do the right thing was out of the question, so I wasn’t surprised.
Fast forward a year. It took me 11 months to find another job with equivalent pay. During those 11 months I ran my credit cards up to pay the bills. So, when the dust settled my family and I were in a bad way.
So you see, not all debt is irresponsible spending but sometimes it is caused by desperation (you have to do what you have to do to keep the roof over your children’s heads.)
Unfortunately, no matter how you got into this debt problem, it will not go away easily. And unless you want to live your life full of stress you have to take action!
So what do you do?
Your don’t want to hear this but you need to start by accessing where you currently are. When debt gets so deep it is easy to hide your head in the sand and stop reviewing your bank account and your bills. The pain is too great!
But let’s agree, that is the old way.
Start by getting a piece of paper and a pen and writing down all that you owe. Next go through what you spend your money on during the day. Here comes the hard part…
…decide what is nice to have as opposed to what is a must have.
Eliminate the nice to have and use that money to start paying down one bill. If you pay the minimum you will never get anywhere.
There is a great system that I used about 3 years ago and has helped me work wonders. It’s called Debt Free in Three. I urge you to check it out.
Ok let’s step back to eliminating the nice to have. You may say that is too much trouble. If you are thinking that way then your not ready to change your debt problems. Stop reading, this post is not for you.
If you are serious about debt elimination then I recommend you visit my page…Secrets of The Millionaire Mind. You learn how to properly think about money, end your destructive attitudes and embrace the positives things you need to do to achieve what you desire.
So let’s recap…
1. Become aware of where you currently are;
2. Break down your spending and identify what you are spending your money on;
3. Eliminate the nice to have stuff;
4. Use that money to identify a bill that you want to pay down;
5. Focus on that one bill and pay it off until you go to the next one.
Resources To Help:
- Secrets of The Millionaire Mind
Listen, it’s important that you take action on this now. So, do something. Find a resource that can help and before you know it, you’ll be out of debt and living a better life!
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