Don’t get discouraged by the time it takes to pay off your debt
Saturday, March 15th, 2008
People often approach me to help them develop plans to pay off their debts, which I am always happy to provide (free of charge) as long as they’re completely honest with me about their finances. Often after three to six months of the changed lifestyle often needed to payoff these debts, people tend to get discouraged and start to just consider alternatives to paying them off, including bankruptcy or just stop paying all together when they could continue, don’t let yourself fall into this discouragement.
Remember that you somehow got yourself into this debt (I’ve rode that boat before as well), and that in most cases, you can get yourself out it the good old fashioned way, paying it off in full according to the contract you agreed to. It may be hard, but just look forward to the day when you have no irresponsible debt and your FICO score says so. Having credit is good, utilizing the majority of that credit, well, not so good. During this process, always keep a spreadsheet showing your active debts and record them incrimentally by the month, allowing you to look at it and see that progress is being made in the process; this will help you ‘keep the faith’.
Most of all, trust in yourself and your ability to do it. You made a decision to pay off your irresponsible debt for a good reason. If you really get trapped into a situation where the struggling is so extreme to pay the debt off in a reasonable period of time that you’re sacrificing neccessities in life (these don’t include Cable or Going out to Eat, etc), then please seek a financial advisor. Note that I said financial advisor and not a debt consolidation/relief company, they are two very different things.
Good luck and keep the faith in finishing your journey to be rid of irresponsible debt, if you need motivation or informal advice on a situation, you can feel free to email me at cinder@socialmarginal.com or comment here for others to provide their input.