Debt has an uncanny way of keeping our finances in a very bad shape and has drowned a lot of people so deep that they may not be able to see the water surface anymore. This is primarily as a result of people not being intentional about their finances enough, people who aren’t financially intelligent enough and just think that they can “work” their way out of each and every money problem – and they just cannot!.
When I mean “working”, I don’t mean on a business, but working for a boss, collecting payments for your time – which doesn’t just work! Yet so many people even spend their income way before they receive it by borrowing money, even getting more money than they collect as salary. This is just really bad for anyone’s finances, as it’s just bound to suffer.
I will be showing you creative ways to pay off debt or ways to get rid of that debt that has just been holding you down.
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Make a conscious decision never to borrow money anymore
This is the first step on how to get out of debt because things are about to change around here. Do not borrow from anyone no matter how hard it becomes. Of course, this may be really difficult when you just need the money to do ‘stuff’ but that’s why you need to prepare your mind to better handle your finances and control your spending so that it never gets to that level.
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Know what exactly is draining your money
Take out a sheet of paper and try to write down your typical expenses. If that becomes difficult, start to document it as the day passes, and try to figure out what takes a lot of your money. Then, sought ways by which you could significantly reduce those unnecessary expenses and work towards it.
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Have a budget
Like they say, he who fails to plan, plans to fail. When you don’t have a plan, you plan to buy anything and everything. However, planning to have anything is next to having no plan at all; because you would definitely fail to be guided and focused when it comes to channeling your expenses when the time comes – when you just have the money at hand.
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Be emotionally intelligent to identify the motives behind your expenses
We all spend for various reasons – love, lust, fear, boredom, anger, too many to count. As funny as this is, a lot of people identify these emotion-based spending as “logical” but it simply isn’t so.
Ask yourself if whatever you’re buying is really out of a need and not a mere want. Ask yourself whether there are better ways to satisfy whatever you need to get satisfied buying that product or using that service. Don’t rush to make a buying decision when you have not taken out time to analyze it properly. Sure, it takes time. But over time, you come to learn patterns, and it just gets easier to pull off.
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Increase your earnings
From the first to the fourth point in this article, I tried to identify ways by which you’ll be able to avoid the trap of getting yourself into debt and how to avoid debt. But now, it is really important that you start earning more. Learn how to invest, learn how to run a business, be intentional about growing your financial intelligence, and make sure you are really diligent in doing stuff that would be financially rewarding overtime.