Helping You Avoid Life's Financial Mistakes

5 Ways To Get Debt Free

Of all the ways to get debt free I have decide to spend a week discussing the different way to do so.  Also I will be discussing the pros and cons of each option.  A lot of the problem of getting out of debt is knowing really what options are available to you and which will help you the best for your situation.

1. Bankruptcy.  Is this the best route?  Sometimes it may be others it may not. 

2. Debt Consolidation.  This is a technique where you combine you current debts into one and make just one payment usually to get a lower interest rate.  A lot of people will usually combine everything into there home loan.

3. Consumer Credit Counseling.  This option allows you to work with an individual to get debt free.  I think of it like a debt coach. 

4.  Debt Negotiation.  This option is where you higher a company to go out negotiate your debts for you helping you cut your interest rates.

5. Do it yourself.  This option is the least costly of them all and allows you to employ tactics such as snowballing.  However just because it’s the cheapest doesn’t mean it’s the easiest.

Out of all 5 of these options they all have there up sides and down sides.  This will be the discussion as the week unfolds.  However knowing your options is just part of the process doing them is a whole other. 

If you are considering any of these options you may want to read these articles before you decide.  In the end you may decided it may be simpler to go with another option first.

How Much Can You Really Cut Back Till It’s To Much?

I recently reviewed an excellent article from yahoo talking about several different ways to save money and cut debt off the tough way.  Everything from selling your car to downsizing your house.  But what happens when you downsize to the point where just one more financial issue and you are over the edge?

With the fears of ressesion, the forclosure mess, and a stock market with more waves than a hurricane in the ocean the true question is how much can we really cut back until it’s just to much?

What do you do once you have already downsized the house and sold the car and still find yourself in the financial gloom?

So here are a few ideas that may help out. 

1.  Never give up!  No matter how bad the situation may get never give in.  Although it may feel as if you are trapped and the walls are caving in this is when you need to put your foot down. 

2.  Educate yourself.  You can’t get out of debt if you don’t know how.  Read books,  listen to tapes, and check out the Internet.  You might say that all cost money, but it’s free at the library.  Education is one of the biggest reasons most even got into debt.  You can even educate yourself on how to get out of debt right here.  You can sign up for are RSS Feed and review past articles, tips, and a polethera of new content being developed on a daily basis.  The thing about education is that it never stops.  The day it stops you stop growing.

So everyday learn one new thing about getting out of debt.  This don’t sound like much but if you would learn one new thing about getting out of debt everyday you would learn 364 new things that could help you get debt free and on the road to success that much faster.

3.  Put a debt free snowball plan together.    If you haven’t heard of this before here is a great article by No Credit Needed that illustrates this point very well.  The simple version of getting out of debt is pretty simple.  Anyone can do it.

4.   Pay yourself first.  Take a tip from the rich this is what they always do first.  Just like when you get your pay check and the first thing they do is take your taxes out the first thing you should do is take money from what you got paid and save it.  Remember it’s not how much you make but how much you keep. 

Save at least 10% back from your paycheck but if that is to much start at 1% and then gradually bump it up.  Then ever few months you can build it up a percent or two.

5.  Stay Focused!  This is again a tough thing to do but you can do it.  I am not going to reiterate this so just review my article on How to Keep a Debt Free Mindset.

Getting debt free is only as tough as you want to make it.  You can do it the hard way or you can do it the easy way.  The hard way you make a lot of mistakes yourself or you find proven ways that successfully helped people get debt free.  I like the second way. 

Finally, there is a long term way to get debt free and a short term way to get debt free.  The only thing for you now is to decide which is the right way for you.  Either way will get you there.