Many times I get questions about debt free living and how I started and why I keep preaching it every day.
Well, the answer’s real easy and I’m going to remind you and give you one easy step to debt free living and really, a wonderful peace of mind feeling when you adapt one minor change to your attitude about debt.
Let me explain. None of us learned how to manage our finances in school. There’s nothing in high school, middle school, or college explaining how you should manage your personal finances. In fact, I’ll bet your parents didn’t advise you either.
Think for a moment about who has been advising you on your finances. Think again. Give up? I’ll tell you. The newspapers, magazines, television, cable, billboards, and letters received in the mail are the culprits.
Those folks have been advising you to manage your finances through debt. And the debt these culprits have been suggesting you live by is all financed by them. Who is them? The big banks and finance companies have been advising you to go into debt up to your eyeballs so they can make money off you in the form of interest payments you pay them each and every month.
Why do you think the banks encourage you to make the minimum monthly payment? So you can get used to making a payment to them each and every month, month in and month out for the rest of your life.
The basic problem you have with your finances is not your fault. Because you (and I) never learned this stuff from our parents, friends, and family (or even school) we’ve allowed the big banks to take over teaching us bad habits.
This is why you hear me talk about the 80/20 rule so much. The 80% percent crowd (which you fall into and I used to fall into) believes everything they’ve learned. And everything they’ve learned is from the big banks and finance companies who are out to fleece you.
These guys want your money. These guys tell you things like “you deserve it now” why wait and make offers to you that sound too good to be true. And because you only know what you’ve learned like the other 80% percent crowd you get sucked into an ugly situation and by the time you realize what happened to you the big banks are now hounding you to either borrow more or pay more in interest payments.
Slowly the banks raise minimum payments raise your credit card limits and encourage you to spend more and borrower more until you wake up one day and are totally trapped by these scoundrels.
There is a better way. There is a way to tell the banks to “SHOVE-IT” and to become one of the minorities in this country, in fact, one of the 20% percenters who have more than enough money; saved money and can pretty much buy whatever they want.
You can have everything you’d like if you make one minor, easy, change.
I call it the easy one step to a better life, to freedom, to better relationships with your spouse, friends, family, kids, etcetera.
Next time we’ll talk about how to make the easy step to debt free living.
David…
Friday, March 21, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Discipline will win out every time
It seems to always happen. When you’re in the middle of paying down debt good things happen. Usually, you’ll get some unexpected over-time, tax return, or other money you were not expecting to receive.
It is very tempting to spend the money. BUT, a little discipline is kind of like an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure. That extra money will fund your reserve or pay off an extra bill quickly.
Once again it’s so tempting to spend the money on nothing at all. You’ll feel like you need to reward yourself. DON’T REWARD YOURSELF! If nothing else put the money in an envelope as a backup reserve.
It’s critical to keep the game plan going. If nothing else you’ll put yourself ahead of schedule. Another technique is to add to the $15 dollar a day strategy and spread it out.
Either way you do it an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure and a little bit of discipline will equal a whole lot of peace of mind.
David…
It is very tempting to spend the money. BUT, a little discipline is kind of like an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure. That extra money will fund your reserve or pay off an extra bill quickly.
Once again it’s so tempting to spend the money on nothing at all. You’ll feel like you need to reward yourself. DON’T REWARD YOURSELF! If nothing else put the money in an envelope as a backup reserve.
It’s critical to keep the game plan going. If nothing else you’ll put yourself ahead of schedule. Another technique is to add to the $15 dollar a day strategy and spread it out.
Either way you do it an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure and a little bit of discipline will equal a whole lot of peace of mind.
David…
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A new habit in 7 days
You’ve heard me go on about how YOU can change your behavior. If you’re a spender you can change your behavior. If you’re a credit card spender you can change your behavior.
It’s easier than you think to change your behavior and get on the road to debt free living. It starts through emotions than action than a new habit.
First and foremost you gotta get mad at your situation. You cannot continue to spend money at your present rate. We’re not the government who seems to be able to spend money they don’t have.
Once you run out of money you’ve got to borrow it. You can only borrow to a point and eventually you’ll run out of the ability to borrow and be in debt up to your eyeballs.
The above is where the mad part comes in. You’ve gotta get mad about your present situation of being in debt. The madder you get the more likely those emotions will turn into ACTION.
It is action that helps make a new habit. A new habit, in this case, of getting out of debt and living debt free is the goal. Once you start making extra payments on your debt you’ll have formed a new habit.
It’ll take 7 days to do it. Here’s a shortcut. Use my $15 dollar a day strategy and make an extra payment each and every day for 7 days. It’s a quick way to develop a new habit and change behavior.
A toast to debt free living
David…
It’s easier than you think to change your behavior and get on the road to debt free living. It starts through emotions than action than a new habit.
First and foremost you gotta get mad at your situation. You cannot continue to spend money at your present rate. We’re not the government who seems to be able to spend money they don’t have.
Once you run out of money you’ve got to borrow it. You can only borrow to a point and eventually you’ll run out of the ability to borrow and be in debt up to your eyeballs.
The above is where the mad part comes in. You’ve gotta get mad about your present situation of being in debt. The madder you get the more likely those emotions will turn into ACTION.
It is action that helps make a new habit. A new habit, in this case, of getting out of debt and living debt free is the goal. Once you start making extra payments on your debt you’ll have formed a new habit.
It’ll take 7 days to do it. Here’s a shortcut. Use my $15 dollar a day strategy and make an extra payment each and every day for 7 days. It’s a quick way to develop a new habit and change behavior.
A toast to debt free living
David…
Monday, March 17, 2008
I've never heard so many excuses in all my life!
I’m utterly amazed. I’ve got a guy who came into some money while paying down his debt. Instead of using the money to pay down debt he took a vacation.
I said, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Well Dave,” he said, “you don’t understand. I needed the time off.”
I sure hope you don’t feel that way.
One thing we haven’t talked about that always happens is when you’re on a roll paying down debt and it becomes a consuming thing where you see results and watch your debt go down while your peace of mind goes up.
Things happen to help you pay it off even quicker. I’ve heard of stories where people I’ve worked with all of a sudden get over-time that never got over-time in the past. I’ve heard of folks inheriting money, I’ve heard of folks making good chunks of money through garage sales, car sales, boat sales, and motorcycle sales.
The moral of the story is to keep paying down debt! And if you get a windfall of money no matter how large or small use it to set-up your reserve fund and PAY DOWN DEBT.
Stay disciplined and keep up the good work. It’s life changing! You can do it. You can “git-r-done”.
David…
I said, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Well Dave,” he said, “you don’t understand. I needed the time off.”
I sure hope you don’t feel that way.
One thing we haven’t talked about that always happens is when you’re on a roll paying down debt and it becomes a consuming thing where you see results and watch your debt go down while your peace of mind goes up.
Things happen to help you pay it off even quicker. I’ve heard of stories where people I’ve worked with all of a sudden get over-time that never got over-time in the past. I’ve heard of folks inheriting money, I’ve heard of folks making good chunks of money through garage sales, car sales, boat sales, and motorcycle sales.
The moral of the story is to keep paying down debt! And if you get a windfall of money no matter how large or small use it to set-up your reserve fund and PAY DOWN DEBT.
Stay disciplined and keep up the good work. It’s life changing! You can do it. You can “git-r-done”.
David…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)