Most things that you actually want to get accomplished have to garner a certain level of attention from you or they just fall to the wayside. Debt is probably one of those things that you have to work even harder at (like losing weight).
It seems like everyone has debt. We can even become obsessed with our credit score which is based on DEBT! Debt to go to school. Debt to buy a home. Debt to buy a car. Debt to go on vacation. What can’t you buy with debt nowadays? Since it’s such an ingrained part of our life, breaking that chain can take some serious changes.
This is WHY I decided to go with a more radical method of paying my debt. The method that I am mainly using is Dave Ramsey’s. I have made some adjustments that I can discuss in a future blog post if you’re interested. Dave’s system starts with baby steps towards your big goal which is to not be reliant on debt. NO DEBT AT ALL, OK!
When I said it was aggressive and radical, I wasn’t joking. The first thing I am doing towards this is paying my debt using the debt snowball approach. You order your debt from smallest to largest (not by interest rate) and pay it down in that order. You get quick victories which help motivate you for the long haul. I have already paid off one card and due to some circumstances (positive) may be able to pay off 1/2 of another in january! WOW. JUST IN 2 MONTHS OF SERIOUSLY DOING THIS.
I was a skeptic. When I initially lined up all my debt, my estimated pay off was over 35 years if I only paid my minimums. If I paid just an extra $200 a month in the snowball method, I could reduce that time to 2.5 to 3 years. Isn’t that a major difference. All I have to do is be diligent, aggressive, and radical with making sure I have that extra $200 a month.