How to Eliminate Your Debt Quickly

More and more people in the US of A are having problems with their debt. I know. I was one of them. To tell the truth, I am again and I am working on getting myself and my family out of debt again.

When I was in college, I was working 35 hours per week and taking 12 to 16 credit hours at school. I was living with my parents and I still had very little money. The reason? I spent it all on stupid stuff. I fed all the collections that I started with more and more stuff that I really didn’t need. When I graduated college, I put a $3,000 down payment for a new car on my credit card. That was a really big mistake. It took me almost 5 years to pay off that $3,000 and it cost me so much more than what I originally charged.

A few years ago I was fed up with all the debt that had piled up on me. It was close to $5,000 plus my car loan. Now I am lucky that I started to read up on how to get myself out of debt when I was only lightly in debt. I know there are people out there who are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. That is terrifying to me.

In my reading, I found that I should be living below 80% of my total income. For some reason I had not really realized that in order to get myself out of debt, I had to actually be able to pay for it. From that point I started to weed myself off of buying stupid things. Most of my collections got moved to the sidelines. I even started to liquidate my collections. My baseball collection found its way onto eBay, as well as part of my autograph collection and some of my coin collection.

I was given regular raises at my job and my income was slowly growing above what it was costing for me to live. I started to see a change in the balance on my credit cards. Instead of watching my credit card debt slowly grow a little each month, I was starting to pay it off little by little. I soon had all my credit cards paid off and took big chunk out of my car loan.

The following is a Step by Step Guide for how I was able to get myself out of debt.

1. Eliminate your stupid spending.
   • Don’t buy Name brands if you don’t have to
   • Don’t allow yourself to make spontaneous purchases. Always Sleep on it.
   • Don’t use your credit card.
2. Credit is Good, Credit Cards are EVIL
3. How Deep Does Your Debt Pit Go?
   • Gather all of your monthly bills.
   • Find How Much you Owe Per Month
   • Cry a bit
4. What Can You Afford to Pay
   • Find your Pay Stub(s)
   • Subtract your Total Debt per Month from Your Total Income
   • Cry a bit more
5. Types of Debt
   • Good Debt
   • Bad Debt
   • Really Atrocious Debt
6. Quickest Way to Pay off your Debt.
7. Proper Perspective about Money
8. More on Thrifty Living