Identify Your Trouble Areas

We all have our own attitudes, anxieties, and myths that we have developed about money. We believe that these beliefs are not inherited, but are learned. They are learned from prior experiences and they impact our money decisions- how we spend, how we save or don’t save, and how a feeling, emotion, or situation can trigger an impulse buy.

It’s important to identify your beliefs and feelings about money especially when they contradict your goal of becoming debt-free. This identification process is sometimes easier when you are able to take a step back and look at your patterns as opposed to individual instances. Identifying patterns and emotional drivers will improve your awareness. When aware, we can deal with our problems more effectively.

Debt Relief Planning: Assess your Financial Situation

A thorough assessment of your financial situation is needed to construct your foundation for financial recovery. Knowing where you are today and what you need to bridge the gap is essential. It also helps to ensure that your plan is realistic, reasonable, and one that you can commit to over time. By maintaining your spending plan (outlined later in this guide), the day-to-day worry about what you can and cannot afford will be removed. It will also help provide you with the single most important thing you can do to improve your situation – stop using credit cards to bridge the gap.

Take Control and Feel Free From Debt

If you are carrying a heavy debt load, the financial, physical, and emotional cost can be staggering especially if the balances on your credit cards increase or stay the same each month despite the payments you make. If you are feeling overwhelmed, don’t panic. You still may have some good options available - better options that don’t include filing for bankruptcy or taking out an additional loan.

If you are like most and have been putting things off because you are scared, you don’t know what to do first, or you don’t know whom to trust, remember the two keys to getting started are “you” and “now.”’ And when it comes to getting out of debt, why not you? Why not now?

When we’ve asked this question to potential clients, the most frequent answers we got in return were:

• Well, I’m too old.

• Because my situation is not that bad.

• Because getting out of debt seems impossible.

Statistics tell us the number one reason why people fail financially is due to procrastination. Putting off financial issues will not improve your situation; in fact it will only reduce the number of options that are available to you. If you start today, you can defeat your debt- no matter what your age or situation. Our clients serve as a great example of what can happen when you set prior feelings aside and start taking action. The below articles will help provide you with more information about your options and how to defeat your debt the smart way.