Get Out of Debt – Page 2 – dollardollarnow.com

Debt sucks. We all know it. That's why I'm glad you're here. Here on Dollar Dollar, I'm committed to showing you the simplest, most effective methods of taking control of your finances, saving money, and getting out of debt forever. The ultimate goal is to just that: debt freedom and peace in your finances. You're doing awesome so far because you've just taken the first step toward that goal. But this journey is treacherous and getting out of debt is not easy. I'll tell you now that there will be days where you'll want to quit. There will be days where you'll be $50-100 dollars or more into a spending binge and hate yourself for it. Some days will be great and then others you will fail. But you HAVE TO keep going. Staying in debt forever is not an option. So let’s take it one day at a time. Today, we’re going to look at 47 of the best and most creative ways to pay off debt and find your way to financial freedom. This is where you start. Are you ready? Let’s go! 47 creative ways to pay off debt 1. Stop borrowing money The first step in actually paying off debt is to stop borrowing more money. I know, crazy, right?! But this is serious. Because if you ever want to get out of debt completely, you can’t continue to borrow more and more money. And if you want to stay out of debt, you have to commit to never borrowing money again. Continuing to borrow while paying off debt is absolutely ludicrous. So you have to stop the bleeding and quit borrowing money. Once you do that, it will be infinitely easier to pay off all of your debt. If you’d like to learn how to stop borrowing money, check out my post, “How to Stop Borrowing Money: The 10 Step Guide to a Debt Free Life.” 2. Find your BIG reason WHY The next thing you need to do once you’ve started your #debtfreejourney is to find your BIG reason WHY you are actually trying to get debt paid off. If you’re paying off debt just to pay it off, that’s fantastic, but it’s not a big enough reason why. If that’s your only reason for paying off debt, you’ll eventually go back into debt. How do I know? Because that was me. I did that. So I had to find a bigger reason why I was getting rid of debt. Here’s my BIG reason WHY (or should I say all my reasons why I’m doing this): I’m absolutely sick of debt, tired of being broke all the time, sick of not being able to afford nicer things, sick of a negative net worth, I want to be able to travel with my wife and not worry about money, I want to help my son go to college without any loans, and I want my wife and I to be millionaires. So you can see all of these things make up a huge reason why I decided to get rid of debt and never go back. 3. Budgeting every dollar Once you’ve committed to never borrowing money again and you’ve found your BIG reason WHY, next up is the budget. The absolute key to crushing all of your debt is the budget. It's almost a bad word in some households, but those who use a budget correctly can see a huge difference in their financial life. A budget is absolutely crucial to your finances, and if you have debt, it's required. A budget allows you to control your money. Most households either don't use a budget, use the budget incorrectly, or don’t use it enough. The budget is one of the most important parts of eliminating debt. This means you have to have one. There are a lot of different budgets that you can try, but I highly recommend using a zero-based budget. This type of budget makes you account for EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR so that there’s no waste anywhere in your household. I love this budget and I’ve used it for almost a decade. It’s helped me pay off a lot of debt, cash flow life events, and build a great net worth so far. For more on zero-based budgeting, check out the following posts: 7 Ways a Zero-Based Budget is the Best Budget for Your Money 37 Ways to Give Yourself a Raise in Your Budget (#27 is Crazy!) 4. Goals The next thing on this list? Financial goals. They are extremely important when you’re trying to get out of debt. I’ve found that when I didn’t have any goals, I really didn’t get anywhere with my money. I just worked, spent, worked some more, saved some, invested some, and woke up a few years later wondering how I got back into debt. If that’s you, too, you need to start setting short term and long term financial goals. These will help hold you accountable and give you a lot of fulfillment along your financial journey as you continue to work and pay off all of your debt. And the best part about goals is that, even if you don’t achieve them all, you’re going to be much farther along than if you didn’t have any goals. Your goals also might take longer to achieve but that’s okay. As long as you’re trying and working hard, that’s completely fine. Zig Ziglar said it best, "if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." So aim for a goal and GO! Now if you’d like some help setting goals, check out this post here on Ramseysolutions.com to learn how to create solid financial goals. 5. Change your mindset and behaviors One of the most important ways to start crushing your debt lies within your mindset and your behaviors. Your mindset and your behaviors can determine your entire life. They can also help you get anywhere, become anything, and be extremely successful. How you think about money and how you behave when you have it can make or break your finances. There are 8 things that I want you think about and understand when it comes to this process: You CAN pay off all of your debt. I did it. You can, too. Money isn’t evil, rich people aren’t evil, and It’s okay to have money. Impulse buying is not okay. You need to have a plan. You have to pay attention. Stop being lazy Don’t keep up with the Joneses, they’re broke! Stop living above your means Start thinking about all of those and changing how you behave and interact with money. You have to change it up if you want to be successful in your #debtfreejourney. 6. You HAVE TO have an emergency fund When paying off debt, you have to have a $1,000 dollar starter emergency fund in place. This emergency fund is extremely important because it helps to give you a little bit of peace of mind while you’re paying off debt. You have a safety net if something happens and that makes a huge difference. Get this knocked out as fast as possible. If you’d like to learn how to build your $1,000 dollar starter emergency fund, check out my post, “How to Create a $1,000 Dollar Starter Emergency Fund in 1 month!” 7. Organize your debts smallest to largest and attack the smallest one You’ve already created your budget so you should have already done this. But I want you to organize ALL of your debts smallest to largest. That should be fairly easy. It might take you a little bit but that’s okay. Just get an accurate picture of what you owe down to the penny. Pay minimums on everything else and attack the smallest with a vengeance until it’s paid off. Then the next. Then the next. Build your momentum and continue destroying your debt every month. 8. Optimize the debt snowball I want you to go further than just listing your debts. I want you to know exactly how much you are paying on every single debt so that you know how much your debt snowball is going to grow when you pay each one off. So list out exactly how much you’re able to pay per month on the smallest debt and exactly how much you owe on every single other debt you have. Now continue to optimize your debt snowball. Once each debt is paid off, make sure you add those minimum payments into your debt snowball every single month. When you pay off a debt, that means you have more income. But you have to be super disciplined and make sure you add that money into your debt snowball, not your spending money. Use the debt snowball. It works. The debt avalanche doesn’t. 9. Stop Investing (temporarily) This was pretty difficult for me because I’ve always been told that you should never stop investing and growing your money with compound interest. And A LOT of other people have also learned this. But here’s where it will trip you up. When you’re paying off debt, you need to scrape every single cent that you can to get your debt paid off as fast as possible. Some financial bloggers will tell you to never stop investing. I say, stop investing temporarily (12-18 months) so that you can get your financial house in order. Pay off your debt and build your fully funded 3-6 month emergency fund. All of your money needs to go to this for that short period of time. You’re doing this so that you can pay off the debt and have even more money to invest. Once your debt is paid off, and your 3-6 month emergency fund is in place, you will start contributing 15% of your gross income to your retirement accounts. Easy peasy. 10. Automate your debt payments You will obviously need to make sure that the payments are accurate and that there are no issues, but automating all of your debt payments can be super simple and can allow you to focus on other parts of your debt free journey like increasing income, budgeting, and saving everything you can. 11. Increase your income Increasing your income is going to be a huge part of your #debtfreejourney. Because you can only cut down expenses so much. We’ll get to that part soon enough, but right now, I want you to sit and ponder every single little thing that you can do to increase your income. A raise at work? Overtime? Side hustle? Second or third job? Selling stuff online? Just get at it and double what you’re bringing in. This doesn’t have to be forever, but you need to hustle hard and work your butt off for as long as it takes to get out of debt. You’re also going to do whatever you can to increase your income. So the formula that I use is: increase income as much as possible + decrease expenses as much as possible = squeezing out every single cent you can to pay off debt. Simple. 12. Sell EVERYTHING You should have already started doing this to get your $1,000 dollar starter emergency fund in place. But let’s take it further. If you still have stuff to sell after your starter emergency fund is funded, keep selling. Sell it all. Sell things you don’t want, things you don’t need, and anything that’s considered useless junk. Because people will seriously buy anything in this digital day and age. We’ve had luck selling everything from old Pokémon cards to coffee mugs #muglife, to just about everything else in between. Seriously, if it’s for sale, someone will buy it. So don’t just throw stuff away. My wife and I also try to flip things from yard sales and make money from selling that stuff online (EBay, mercari, Facebook Marketplace). We’re not pros by any means but have made a few thousand dollars now by flipping things. And we’ve made even more from just selling things online. Now that we’re debt free, we use our online sales to fund our yearly vacation. Pretty cool. 13. Ask for a raise at work If you’re a hard worker and you believe you’re being underpaid at your full-time job, respectfully ask for a raise. A lot of people work extremely hard and deserve at least a small raise, but are often too afraid to ask. If this is you, it’s potentially costing you thousands of dollars! If you believe that you should get a raise, first find out if your position or job is being paid more anywhere else. That’s the key. You want equal pay for what your position is worth. Next, request a meeting with your supervisor. Explain to your boss that you believe you have contributed a lot of work and into your job and you would like to kindly and respectfully ask for a raise. The worst thing they can do is say, “no.” Do NOT go and demand a raise, though. Just ask and see what happens. Lastly, if you’ve been turned down, ask your boss how you can contribute to deserve a raise or deserve a promotion. All of this will now have your boss thinking about you and your contributions to the company. If you do get that raise, take whatever extra money you are now earning and put it toward debt! 14. Overtime If you’re unable to get a raise, start asking for overtime at your workplace. This will show your boss that not only are you working hard for 40 hours, but for many more hours on top of that. Some places even pay time and a half or double pay for overtime. That is good money and can easily help you double your income. Do whatever it takes to get your debt paid! 15. Get a Side Hustle, second job, or third job If you’re a highly motivated person, think about starting up a side hustle. If you have a particular skill or can learn a skill, let’s start turning that into cash. Cutting grass, pressure washing, cleaning houses, walking dogs, and painting are just a few of the several hundred different kinds of side hustles you can do to make $20-30 dollars an hour or more. If you want to go the more traditional route, start looking to pick up a second or a third part-time job. There are a ton of places offering part-time work for $15 dollars an hour or more. Sounds like easy money to me. Food for thought: “the more you work, the less you spend.” - Dollar Dollar 16. Always put excess cash, bonuses, or leftover monies toward the debt Whether it’s excess cash you’ve earned, a bonus at work, or leftover money at the end of the month, I want you to use every extra dollar to pay off debt. Challenge yourself to always have this extra money left in your budget. Work harder for extra money. And work even harder for bonuses or raises in your income. Don’t waste anything extra. Just put it toward your debt and go as fast as you can toward debt freedom. Also, if you get a tax refund, use that, too! Check out these two posts below: The 37 Best Ways to Use Your Tax Refund Wisely This Year! 17 Ways You Shouldn’t Use Your Tax Refund (Don’t Do This!) 17. Turn it into a game by always trying to spend less than the budget Climbing out of debt is hard, but it can be fun. Challenge yourself (and your significant other if possible) to make this into a game, a race, or a challenging battle to see who can pay off debt the fastest, who can make more money on the side, who can be more creative, and win with money. Challenge yourself to all of these things. Make it all fun. Sometimes numbers and figures are boring but they don't have to be. 18. Cut out drinking, smoking, vaping, and any other bad habit that costs you more than just money A lot of people have habits - some good and some bad. Some cheap and others not so cheap. So here’s where you need to think about your life and your bad habits. Do you smoke, drink, vape, or have any other bad habit that costs you money? If you don’t think about it, that bad habit that costs you “just” $5 or $10 dollars a day can easily add up into a significant amount of money per month. Most habits aren’t too bad but there are some that are not only costing you money, but hurting your physical health as well. Here are a few: Drinking too much alcohol Smoking cigarettes Vaping Too many energy drinks Too much fast food Daily Starbucks and… Too much candy or sugary food Those aren’t all of them, but just a few that can hurt your health and your wallet. My bad habits include a daily energy drink and sometimes too much fast food. Not horrible but I try to cut back most of the time to save money. If you have any of these bad habits, cut them out. 19. Scrap hobbies that cost money and add hobbies that make money Next, I want you to look at what kind of hobbies you currently participate in and assess whether they are too expensive or not while getting out of debt. Now I’m not saying cut out your hobbies forever. Believe me, I like to have fun and I have a lot of different hobbies. But think about where you are. You’re in debt. This is an emergency. You need to get out of debt as fast as possible and expensive hobbies don’t help. Again, you don’t have to quit your hobbies. If you want, just cut back on them a bit and you can still do them in moderation. Here are a list of expensive hobbies that you need to cut out/do in moderation while paying off debt: Video games Golf Firearms & shooting Boating Paintball and Airsoft Anything else that consistently costs you money. One hobby that I love that helped me get through my debt was disc golf. It’s such a cheap hobby and I liked it so much that I built a whole website teaching players how to play. All you need are a couple of $15 dollar discs, a $20 dollar bag, and some drinks and snacks. Once you have that, like 95% of all disc golf courses are free. And there are A LOT of them all over the world. If you’d like to check out disc golf, head over to my disc golf website: DiscgolfNOW.com 20. Find things you are spending too much money on and eliminate them Now I want you to look a little bit deeper. Past your hobbies and into your expenses. As you’re tracking your money with your budget, find anything that you believe you’re spending too much money on and either cut back on it or cut it out of your budget. If you make a decent salary, and you have no money, I’m talking to you. The money is going somewhere. Overspending can destroy your budget and derail your progress. So find that money! 21. Only Buy Things You NEED Here’s a simple plan for getting out of debt FAST: only buy the things you really NEED. Most people think they “need” a lot more than they really do. They don’t want to sacrifice because that’s “hard.” Don’t be like this. That mindset sucks. I find stuff all the time that I WANT, and could really use, but I don't NEED it. There are a lot of really cool things that are made that can make life awesome, but you have to understand what you need as opposed to what you want that can be useful. Ex: A tactical bugout bag is really cool and can be useful, but right now, you don't need it. New makeup can be useful, but if you already have makeup, you don’t really need it. 22. Learn how to say, "NO!" This brings us perfectly into the next section - learning how to say, “NO!” This is a simple concept, but it isn’t used as often as it should be. People in this day and age just aren’t disciplined at all. A lot of people never tell themselves no. If you truly want to get out of debt, you have to be able to show discipline and tell yourself, “NO!” to all of those wants and luxuries. 23. No spend challenge I LOVE the no-spend challenge. It’s not an easy challenge by any means, but the concept is simple: absolutely no spending on any wants, luxuries, or things you don’t need. Obviously pay your bills and any debt payments. But everything else is completely cut out for a short period of time that you can choose: one day, a few weeks, a month, a couple of months, or even a year. It’s tough, believe me. I usually do this challenge for a month when I know the month is going to be a little bit tight. But it’s up to you. I’m fairly disciplined so that’s how I like to do it. You choose how you will do it and go from there. Try it for a day just to test. Then go for even longer. It’s an awesome exercise in frugality that can really help you develop the part of the brain that controls spending and being frugal. If you’d like to learn more about the no spend challenge, check out this post here on the savvysparrow.com. 24. Cancel unused memberships and streaming services The next step in this guide is to start looking at all of the different streaming services and memberships you’re currently subscribed to. Now write them ALL down and commit to canceling some of your services. This applies mainly to streaming services as a lot of individuals will have 10-15 different streaming services and plus services. All of those services are cheap by themselves, but can add up to hundreds of dollars per month if you’ve got a bunch of them. You really don’t need that many services. Keep 4 or 5 and cancel the rest. Other types of services you can cancel: gym (only if u don't use it) magazines subscription boxes radio streaming services website or forum site memberships Yearly annual memberships to places like the local zoo or science center(worth it but can be pricey) All in all, you’re probably spending way more than you need to be. Get out of debt faster by cutting out some of your subscriptions. 25. Cut out Cable TV This next way of saving money is easy to do and you may have actually done this already: cut out cable TV. It’s easy to do and can save you up to $100 dollars per month or more. That’s an extra thousand bucks a year or more toward your debt! Plus, you’ve already got all those streaming services anyways! 26. Re-shop for all of your insurances and find better rates One way to find even more money in your budget is to start shopping around for every kind of insurance you currently have to find cheaper options. People often get screwed with insurance prices so this is something you definitely want to think about. Most insurance policies throughout different companies are generally the same. As long as they offer a certain amount of money that complies with all laws, finding a cheaper price that offers the same coverage is normally fine to do. And even if it only saves you $10-20 bucks a month, that’s still extra money. Take what you can get. Here are a couple of insurances that you can shop around for: Health insurance (if your job doesn’t offer it) Car insurance Term life insurance Homeowner’s insurance Disability insurance For more on the different types of insurance, check out this post here on Ramseysolutions.com. 27. Lower your cell phone bill If you’re hardcore about getting rid of debt, you may be inclined to try a different cell phone provider. Most companies that are newer to the game actually provide you with the same services as the major companies because they use the same service towers! If you’re sick of your outrageous cell phone bill, check out some of the newer companies and find one that works for you and your family. 28. Lower you gym cost (or cut it out) Now first off I just want to say that I’m a huge health advocate and I think you should keep your membership if you ACTUALLY use it. I workout 4-5 days a week so I use mine a lot. But if you have a membership just to make yourself feel good, but don’t use it, go ahead and cancel it. You’re wasting money that you could use for debt. You could also consider changing to a cheaper gym depending on how you workout. If you simply do cardio or weightlifting, the smaller, 24/7 fitness gyms are normally $15-20 dollars per month. Those are perfectly fine. I switched from a huge franchise gym ($30/month) to a smaller franchise gym ($15/month). Just something to think about. 29. Grocery shop smarter Finding ways to save at the grocery store is more important than ever due to high inflation and supply chain issues. It’s up to you to find every way to save a buck so that you can continue crushing debt and making progress. Here are a couple of quick ways to save money at the grocery store: Check out cheaper grocery stores like Aldi, Food Lion, and Trader Joe’s. Use coupons whenever you can. Make a list and stick to it! Try out store brand items If you only need a couple of things, DON’T get a cart. This will force you to only get your couple of things and nothing else. Say “No!” to anything extra. Don’t grocery shop while hungry! Bad idea. And there are many more hacks for grocery store shopping. Those are just the best few. 30. Clothes shop smarter Clothes shopping can get extremely expensive if you’re looking for the latest trends, the newest of the new, or status from wearing certain name brands. Well guess what? Nobody really cares what you wear. Most people are so worried about what other people think that they don’t stop and think about how all of that is affecting their finances. Wealthy people don’t care about name brands or trends or status from clothing. They buy reasonable clothing from consignment stores, shop at Goodwill, and buy newer clothes either on sale or at Walmart. If you want to spend your whole paycheck on brand new clothes, go for it. But I’d rather you spend all of that money destroying your debt. 31. Delete cards from online stores The very next thing I want you to do after you read this section is to put it into action. Go do what I’m about to tell you: delete all of your card information from the various websites that you shop on. Aside from the threat of identity theft from storing credit/debt card information on an online store or website, you also run the risk of spending more money on that site because it’s easier for you to purchase stuff. You see, this has all been studied and is well-known in online business. Businesses know the psychology and they know that the easier they make it for you to purchase on their site, the more likely you will. It’s called “friction” in online shopping. According to signifyd.com’s article here, ‘“Friction” occurs when something disrupts the customer's flow and discourages or distracts them from completing their purchase.’ So the more disrupted you are from shopping, the more likely you won’t make the purchase you started to make. Amazon is a great example of almost no friction. Just the tap of a button or a mouse and your purchase is on the way to your home. Storing cards isn’t convenience, it’s predatory. They want you to purchase. So don’t let them get you. 32. Cash back apps Now I don’t use a whole lot of these because the majority are just a complete waste of time. But there are two specific apps that I like a whole lot. Upside: formally known as GetUpside, this app helps you save just a little bit at the gas pump. You don’t earn a whole lot but I’ve made almost $400 dollars on it in just a couple of years. Doesn’t seem like much but it all adds up! Ibotta: this app gives you cash back on groceries. My wife likes to use this app and has made around $100 bucks on it. And she probably could have doubled that if she was really using it. If you’d like to find more, just Google, “best cash back apps,” and you should get a pretty good list of them. Use ‘em and put that money toward debt! 33. Get creative for holidays and birthdays and make gifts With inflation at its highest levels in 40 years, you’ve got to find every way possible to keep your budget from being destroyed by expenses. One awesome thing you can do is to get creative for holidays and birthdays by making gifts. My family does this because it can save a ton of money, you can make truly personal gifts, and because my wife is really good at baking (people LOVE Christmas cinnamon bread). So whether you bake something, make something, or custom DIY a personal gift, this can save you thousands of dollars per year. 34. Rethink date nights (temporarily) and do free or cheap stuff. Now I know people are going to get angry about this one. “If you really love someone, it doesn’t matter what dates cost!” I’ve heard that and I’ll counter with, “If you truly love someone, getting on the same page with your finances will make your relationship stronger - and that includes cheap date nights until you get out of debt.” You see, when you both agree about finances, a lot of stress will melt away. If you all are in debt, you need to get out as fast as possible. How do we do that? Free up as much money as we can to pay it off. And that means [temporarily] finding cheaper date nights or things to do that are completely free. Here are a few cheap things to do: Disc golfing (you just need a few things and then it’s almost free). Mountain Biking or (you just need the bikes then it’s almost free). DIY date nights including cooking at home and other time spent at home. City festivals and events (can be free). Going to a movie (movie tickets only - be careful of expensive snacks). Video game arcade. Here are a few free things to do: Hiking and trail running Running Exercising Taking walks Board games And this doesn’t have to last forever. Just while you’re getting out of debt. Then you can designate more money to it later. For more ideas, check out moneytamer.com’s article here on, “41 Free or Cheap Date Ideas for When You’re Broke.” 35. Make coffee at home Now my wife loves specialty coffee from Starbucks and all the local coffee shops. But she also recognizes that these drinks can cost $6-7 dollars or more! So we bought a specialty coffee machine - the Keurig K-Cafe - so that she could make more specialty coffees for less cost. We spent about $200 bucks for that machine and some syrups and it has easily paid for itself in just a couple of months. Also, making regular coffee at home can save you thousands per year. I’m not a huge fan of coffee, but I’d rather make it at home for $.10-.20 cents per cup instead of spending $3-4 dollars per cup or more! If you’d like to check out the Keurig K-Cafe, get one here on Amazon. 36. Meal Prepping Meal prepping is one of those things that can save you SO MUCH MONEY in your budget. My wife and I have done this for years and it has always seriously felt like we got a raise in our income. Meal prepping is just making a bunch of food at once and storing it so that you can have meals over the course of a week or a month. We normally meal prep for the week and this helps us to always have food ready for packing lunches. It also helps us not eat out as much. Plus, food cooked at home is almost always healthier than restaurants or fast food places. If you’re struggling with your budget and need to find more money for debt, meal prep your food and also do the next 4 things on this list. 37. Packing lunches Packing your lunch can save you thousands per year and families can save into the tens of thousands on grocery bills. Imagine how much extra cash you could have left over to crush your credit card, overdue student loans, or mortgage loan. You have to cut down your spending, while making the most of your groceries, coupons, and cooking knowledge to put together good meals that will help you stay motivated to keep packing lunches. That’s a HUGE money saver. 38. Stop eating out Fast food and eating out can break the budget. I know this one from experience. Back in college, I used to work part time and would regularly spend $200-300 dollars per month on fast food. That's easy to do if you buy a $10 dollar meal out per day. This is the behavior we have to start controlling in order to crush debt. Dining out needs to be cut down and fast food consumption should be limited. I don't care if you have a burger or two a week, but you need to limit yourself. Think about it, the more you save, the more you can pay off! 39. Drink More Water Water is extremely important for your health and can save you a lot of money by not letting yourself consume too many sugary drinks, carbonated sodas, or energy drinks. Also, get a couple of BPA-free plastic water bottles to fill up every day. This will save you even more! 40. Eat healthier and Take Care of Yourself This isn’t just a get out of debt tip, but an overall life tip. You need to eat healthy, drink enough water, exercise, rest, and take care of your body. It’s very important that you do this for two reasons: If you’re dead, you can’t achieve any financial goals. If you’re in poor health, you may not be able to work or work enough to pay off your debt. Plus, you’ll spend more money on medication and doctor visits! So both of those are motivation to stay fit and healthy! The more money you have from not paying for medical, the more debt you can pay off. 41. Carry cash The next tip on this list is to carry cash. Why? Because cash helps you spend less money. Psychologically, spending with cash hurts more than spending with cards so it will only help your budget to carry cash. Lastly, on Fundera.com, the statistics they gathered from Experian credit company show that the average cash purchase is only $22 dollars and the average credit card purchase is $112 dollars! That’s why you should carry cash! 42. Negotiate your credit interest rates to help you save some money So first of all, whether you have debt or not, you need to go ahead and cut up your credit cards. They suck, they’re dangerous, and they are hurting you financially. Be done with them. Here is my post on the 37 reasons why credit cards are bad. But if you do have debt on them, call to negotiate a better interest rate so that you can save a little if money on the interest while you’re paying it off. Once it’s paid, close the account and cut it up. 43. Consolidate your loans If you’re struggling to pay off debt because of outrageous interest rates, consider consolidating your loans into one bigger loan with a much lower interest rate. This could potentially save you a couple thousand dollars during your #debtfreejourney. 44. Always try to save Whether you’re negotiating expenses down, saving at the grocery store, or doing a no-spend challenge, you should always be trying to save money and live frugally. It’s how you’re going to get out of debt, stay out of debt, AND build wealth. Remember that every cent counts towards the goal. That's why we have to pay attention and recognize when and where we can save money. If you can do that, you’re going to be very wealthy over the course of your life. 45. Stay Motivated One of the hardest things to do while paying off debt is to stay motivated. Because this is a REALLY HARD thing to do. It’s a simple process, but tough. The reason? Because it’s lengthy and it takes discipline every single day. So you have to find ways to stay motivated. Here are a couple of ways to stay motivated while paying off debt: If you have a spouse, continually cheer each other on. Do a challenge to see how quickly you can pay down debt (or challenge your spouse). Surround yourself with people who are cheering you on. Cut people out who are negative about your journey or who continually try to persuade you to borrow. Join an in-person or online group to get A LOT of encouragement! Coloring a debt free chart. Listening to Dave Ramsey or other financial podcasts. Watching YouTube videos to inspire you. You do all of that and you’ll be out of debt in no time. 46. Continue learning more about money, Discipline, and Consistency Whether you’re financially savvy and working on your debt or a complete newbie to this money thing, you need to keep learning about everything personal finance. Most of the concepts in personal finance are simple, but things are always changing and there’s a lot to learn. I’m 10 years in and I’m still learning. The great thing is that almost all financial knowledge is free and readily available at your fingertips. So don’t ignore your financial problems. They say ignorance is bliss but I say ignorance is broke. Don’t be broke. Work on paying off your debt so that you can take back your income and use it to build real wealth. 47. Just start You can’t finish if you don’t start. Most people aren’t even going to be reading a post like this because they don’t care. But you do. You’ve either started paying off debt or you’re thinking about it. So take action and just start. I’ve already done it. I know that YOU can, too. Finally Wow…that was a long post. If you were able to get through all of that, I applaud you. You must be VERY serious about getting out of debt. That’s good. Use that spark to light that debt on fire and extinguish it as fast as you possibly can. Don’t let the chains of debt slavery hang around your neck anymore. Time to get out of debt forever and build wealth. Are you in? Related content 17 Personal Finance Tips to Beat Inflation: The 2022 Guide 20 Reasons Why Debt is Bad: The 10,000+ Word Complete Guide! Freepik attribution Comic style vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com