Personal debt consolidation is only step one to financial freedom.
Once we've gotten to the point where we're entrenched in debt and the bills just keep piling up on top of each other, we have to ask ourselves: how did we get here?
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"Money is a good servant but a bad master."
- Francis Bacon |
If you're one of the many Americans who need personal debt consolidation, it's crucial that you trace your steps back to those days when you maybe didn't own a credit card.
Do you even remember those days?
Just because everybody and their dog seem to be in debt these days, it doesn't mean that debt is an inevitable fact or necessary evil of your life.
The debt you've acquired is very much a direct result of specific choices you have made along the way. Only through an honest self assessment and by deconstructing your spending habits, can you prevent the debt beast from devouring you once again.
While personal debt consolidation is certainly a tool you can use to help manage your debt, it's not the final solution. The solution is to organize your life in line with your finances, not the other way around.
So how did you get into this mess? If you knew the answers, you probably wouldn't have much difficulty fixing the problem, right?
But the fact of the matter is those who are thousands of dollars in debt (and indeed, most U.S. citizens are) have created a cycle of debt that affects not only their pocketbooks, but their emotional well-being and self-esteem.
First off, which came first: the spending or the debt? That is easy to answer. Obviously, you aren't born with debt! But on that same note, if you're American, you are born into a society that intensely pressures its people into buying everything from shoes to cars to houses.
Commercials tell us we won't be happy without that designer handbag or that big house. But the truth is we are living in fear, stressed out and worried beyond comprehension when we are mired in debt.
If your credit score is low, it's because you aren't handling your debt well, so chances are your self-esteem is also low - you feel like a failure.
THAT way of thinking only makes you more susceptible to the relentless TV and newspaper ads that are pressuring you to buy products you can't afford! But everybody's doing it - your family members, your friends, the people you go to church with, the people you work with - so it's normal, right?
Unfortunately, if you are resorting to personal debt consolidation, you aren't a rare breed. But that doesn't mean you have to be like everybody else. Personal debt consolidation, paired with a determined and focused effort to control spending can be your ticket for getting out of debt permanently.
You can dig yourself out of debt and secure a better future for you and your family. The key is to understand that feeling guilty about your spending habits and allowing yourself to become stressed out about how much you owe the banks and the stores merely paralyzes you.
Instead, simply look at debt as a symptom of the overall problem and not an indicator of your self worth.
Talk to a financial adviser about how to spend less and save more and how to approach personal debt consolidation, all with the end goal of conquering your debt and living a debt free, happy and joyful life.
"One way to solve the traffic problems of this country
is to pass a law that only paid-for cars
be allowed to use the highways.”
- Will Rogers |
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Debt is NOT your friend. It's not a wonderful "tool" for building wealth. That's a myth.
