Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Top 5 Debt Elimination Tips to Become Debt Free

By Jonathan Lemereaux

Debt is at the heart of the wallet. From the time young children are taught about money, they see commercials, advertisements and signs all around them telling them to charge everything they could ever want on credit cards, with loans and lines of credit. From cars to homes, there are few things that are bought today that can be paid for outright. This creates debt and the need for debt elimination and becoming debt free.

The difference in owing and owning is debt. Eliminating debt and becoming debt free is at the heart of the world today thanks to the huge influx of credit programs. When a person chooses debt elimination and decides to live a debt free lifestyle, they will often experience less overall life stress, a happier persona and be able to save more money than they ever thought possible. Five tips to debt elimination and becoming debt free include:

Cash Rules - We are a society that thinks debt free means not owing the full balance on our credit cards. This is a distorted idea of debt free life. When you purchase something new, training yourself to only buy what you can pay for in cash today is the best debt free choice. Debt elimination starts by changing the ideas you have about money, not about the definition of debt free.

Credit Cards Be Gone - This is often the hardest step for people who are trying to live life in a debt free way. The credit cards they hold offer them a better lifestyle, one that is full of buying more and more things. These things need to be placed on a budget and saved for in order to choose debt elimination and live as a debt free person. Debt free does not mean charging less on your cards, it means not charging at all.

Never Pay Just the Minimum - The minimum payment on a credit card will often leave you in debt longer as opposed to creating a debt free life. The debt elimination of credit card money owed means paying off those balances. The minimum payment is not there for a debt free person, it is there for a person that does not mind making monthly payments for a long time to pay off a balance. Debt free means zero balance and that is going to take higher payments and more frequent payments and debt elimination.

No More Monthly Payments - When trying to move from debt to debt free, you must forget about how much you can afford per month and stick with what you can afford right now. Debt free means taking those monthly payments and converting them to monthly savings. Debt elimination is getting rid of that debt.

Do Not File Bankruptcy - Businesses who are going under file bankruptcy, not the person who wants to be debt free. Eliminating debt for good requires learning how to live day to day in a cash only world. This can not happen if the debt free nature of out lives is given to us.

Our lives are so very filled with the need to have more of everything right now that we have forgotten about the debt free nature of life. We expect to live debt free when we are young, but then fall into charged and owed debt, thus making debt elimination seem like it is too far away to grasp. Our debt free lives depend on living everyday with a total cost mindset and the heart to live with what we can afford right now, thus making debt elimination a new beginning. - 15224

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