Regardless of your personal finance education, you CAN get out of debt! If the figures on American debt are any indication, we all could use some additional help in this area. Remember that book “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”?
"Try not to become a man of success
but rather to become a man of value.”
- Albert Einstein |
Yeah, not true. It turns out the things we need to know about finance aren’t even taught in high school! Schools can’t teach everything you need to know in your everyday life, so it’s up to the individual to seek out his or her own personal finance education. Most of us learned the basics about money from our parents - how to open a bank account, how to write checks, and so forth. But what about the more advanced things? Did anyone ever teach us how to save money, or how to avoid getting into debt, or how to smartly repay our debts once we’ve acquired them? Probably not. That’s why so many of America’s biggest debtors are college students - young people out on their own for the first time, experiencing a taste of freedom that they’re not quite prepared for yet. The good news is that not all is lost yet. No matter how deep you may be in debt now, or how bad your spending habits may be, it’s never too late to develop better habits and get yourself out from under the burden of owing money. It’s all up to YOU, though. There’s no use in blaming the credit card companies (as loathsome as they may be) or the collection agencies (as predatory and deceitful as they are). Accept the situation you’re in now, and take full ownership of it. After all, YOU created it. Commit to yourself that you’re going to get the personal finance education you need, and DO something about it! Sites like Debt-to-Income.com offer plenty of free money-management tips and strategies. There are no tricks or get-rich-quick schemes. There’s only practical, realistic advice that anyone can follow. All it takes is some self-discipline. Most of us have jobs that pay us enough to live. The reason we’re broke all the time is that we live beyond our means; we spend more than we should, and we let ourselves get into debt. A quality personal finance education will help you to change all that. Make no mistake, it takes commitment. You have to tell yourself that you’re going to make the changes necessary to gain financial independence. Commit to getting out of debt by aggressively paying off the creditors you now owe. Commit to building up a savings fund by conscientiously spending less and reducing your monthly expenses. Financial independence can be achieved, regardless of what you learned in school. Anyone can gain financial freedom.
|
"Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt."
- Benjamin Franklin |
|
Debt is NOT your friend. It's not a wonderful "tool" for building wealth. That's a myth.
