taking the road to financial freedom

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“Every time you borrow money, you’re robbing your future self.”
— Nathan W. Morris

In today’s world filled with tempting deals and gadgets, both online and offline, we are so blinded by shiny objects that we stop caring about the amount of money we are spending.

If you are someone who has accrued credit card and other debt and is desperate to pay it off, I would highly recommend reading Dave Ramsey’s book The Total Money Makeover and following the “7 Baby Steps” he has mentioned in it. A step-by-step approach is key and it is very important that you cultivate patience. In these days of instant gratification, it will take some WHY power (better than willpower!) to cultivate the habit of being patient and making delayed gratification a priority. It may seem painful in the short term, but staying disciplined will immensely pay off in the long run.

Here are some reasons why debt is bad for us and our lives in general:

1. When we accrue debt, all our extra money goes into paying off the balances. In this way, it stops us from experiencing things we’d really like to do.
2. It is costly. Although it may seem like a good quick fix, in the long run, we end up paying way more than we had expected.
3. Debt takes a long time to get paid off and is not easy to get rid of.
4. We’re not in control of our own money and we feel helpless.
5. It impedes our ability to travel around, explore new places and cultures, and gather new experiences.
6. It can be a big contributor towards stress and depression, hence negatively affecting our mental and emotional well-being.
7. It strains our relationships with our spouses, friends, and family members.

There is no knight in shining armor who will come to your rescue. We have to seek solutions ourselves, and it all starts with changing ourselves first. Some effective tools and strategies that can help us in paying off debt are:

1. Reading books and educating ourselves on personal finance management.
2. Tracking our expenses.
3. Making a budget and sticking to it – this is a game changer!
4. Having an emergency fund, which will be our safety net for unexpected expenses.
5. Cutting up our credit cards.
6. Using cash whenever we can.
7. Switching to the mindset of abundance.