The Way of No Debt

By Leo Babauta In 2005, one of the low points of my life, I had 5 kids, crippling debts, and was barely making it from paycheck to paycheck. I would shove my bills in a drawer, envelopes unopened, so I didn’t have to deal with bills I couldn’t pay. I would avoid the calls of collection agencies. I was swimming in debt, and didn’t know how to get out. The real low point, though, came when we didn’t have enough money to buy some milk and cereal for the kids. My bank account had a negative balance. So I stole money from my kids’ piggy bank to buy the food. Yeah, that didn’t feel good. Things went on like this for awhile before I finally decided it was time to face the fears, see my situation clearly, and start doing something about it. Here’s what I did: I finally faced the problem: I took the bills out of the drawer, and make a spreadsheet with all my debts, the amounts, and the minimum monthly payments. I took a look at our spending, and realized we needed to stop the bleeding before we could start healing. We were spending more than we earned, or at best, all of what we earned. So we cut out all kinds of expenses: cable TV, one of our cars, magazine subscriptions, daily lattes, going to the movies with the kids, buying new things other than actual necessities, going to the mall for entertainment, eating out, buying convenience food. Many of these things we cut out gradually, a month at a time, but some we cut out right away. We start...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs