Are you overwhelmed by your debt? Is your debt, excluding your first mortgage, greater than your annual income? Are you barely able to make the minimum payment on your credit cards? Do you feel like even with an aggressive payment plan, it will take you several years to be debt free?
It can be quite frustrating to look at your debt and suddenly realize just how much you really do owe. Just the thought of owing more than you make in a year can be quite daunting. It is important to realize that even those with large amounts of debt can become debt free relatively quickly if they are focused and intent on becoming debt free.
Once you have set down and created a list of your debts and decided the order to pay them off, you will need to find extra money to put towards the debts. It is also important to focus all of your extra money on one debt since this will help you to pay off your debt much quicker. The challenge is to find the extra money. If you are a lower income family this really can be a difficult process. You may be living frugally already, and find that you need to increase your income.
Once you are focused on becoming debt free, you will be surprised at the things that happen to help you out. In reality it is probably that your attitude to money changes, and so you look at things differently. You may find that your bonuses will help your reach your goals sooner, whereas before you would use that money for a vacation. You may find that a second job for six months is worth the effort to eliminate your debt more quickly. Also as you start to control your spending and your debt there is much more freedom in how you manage your money, this helps to shift your perspective as well.
You can pay off your debt if you stay focused and work at it. The harder you work to become debt free means that you will work that much harder to remain debt free. It is a wonderful feeling to realize that you do not owe anyone any money. You can have that peace and freedom as well.
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