The statistics on personal indebtedness are pretty shocking. Back in 2008, the consumer credit market was teetering on the abyss. Personal indebtedness was at all time highs, measuring in the trillions of dollars. After the recession, people began paying off their debts. But they didn’t get very far. Thanks to endless government incentives, people have racked up almost as much debt as they did on the eve of the financial crisis.
The signs that we’re headed for another recession are all around us. The stock market has reached heights never before seen, house prices continue to rise, and millions of people are still out of the workforce. From an economic perspective, the outlook looks grim.
A lot of people, however, are opting out of the system. They don’t want to spend their lives living under a mountain of debt and endlessly adding to it, never having any assets of their own. Instead, they’ve changed their behavior and their lifestyle. It’s time to spill the beans on how to go debt-free.
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Learn How To Say “No”
Saying no, according to Spencer Reese, is one of the hardest things to do when it comes to your personal finances. His wife wanted to go on an expensive holiday. But it turned out that they didn’t have the money they needed to pay for it. Reese says that being frugal isn’t for butterflies and snowflakes. It’s something that takes guts and determination because of the fact that it can be unpopular.
Kyle Pendergrass, a lawyer, said that he started cutting back on expenses to go debt free. The first thing he cut was going out for expensive meals, but this wasn’t entirely popular. In fact, he ended up losing several friends who couldn’t understand why he wasn’t coming out to meet up with them anymore. It had to be something more sinister, they thought than simply wanting to save money.
Get A Side Hustle
Side hustles aren’t popular, but they’re becoming more of a thing. Because people’s regular jobs aren’t paying enough, many are looking for other ways to make a living. At one point, Reese worked more than three jobs to make ends meet. The good news is that it is easier than ever to make money with a side hustle. You could become an Uber driver, a pet sitter and even make a living selling junk on Etsy. Seasonal jobs can be lucrative too, especially if you live in an agricultural community.
Get A Raise
The other option is to try and get a raise. It turns out that most companies have a lot of money sloshing around. It’s just that a smaller and smaller proportion of that money is going to the people who work for them for a variety of reasons. The only way to get a raise, according to Reese, is to ask for it. He managed to bag a $12,000 raise back in 2012 that enabled him to pay off a big chunk of his mortgage and car loans.
Debts are scary! This is why I always reject offers for ‘pre-approved loans’ and the like. Ayoko magkautang! 😀
Nice practical tips. Saying no could be the most difficult for most.
Great tips!
Believe it or not, my husband and I are actually debt-free, we’ve been so for almost 4 years now, what did we do? In 2011 we decided to get rid of all our credit cards and just live off on cash, it was hard because we relied on our credit cards a lot, but then we realized if we actually wanted to be retired, happy and debt free by the time we’re 60, we had to make a lifestyle change, so we got rid of all our credit cards, paid off our debts the following years and we have been living debt free for 4 years now, now we just have to learn to save, because although we have no debts, we also have no savings. 😀 haha! Baby steps! 😛
nice to know and read about this. Ever since we arrived in dubai, we never miss a month not paying our credit cards. Living a simple life made us more organise and debt free and saving more money. we eat out when we can, but we budget our food every week and only use CC when we need it. living in a apartment in dubai helped us save money too! instead of living in a expensive villa. Uber driver is a good side line too! i have many friends who does that back in malaysia.
Just like Ane, cutting the credit cards is the first step we did to be debt free. Now, we’re happy to pay for all our transactions in cash. Mas nako control mo kasi ang expenses pag ganun.
In our case, having credit cards help us budget our finances. I dunno, but we can control our spending better than if we have ready to spend cash in our wallets. Plus, we get rewards pa. We just don’t have loans though. Ang scary pag di na bayaran.
I ride with Uber and most of the drivers have a full time job and they drive after work. It looks like a nice sideline.