Five Best Ways Get Out of Debt and Finally Get Ahead

You don’t have to win the lottery in order to get a handle on your finances and come out ahead of the game each month. With discipline and some lifestyle changes you can discover how to live better, stretch your dollars farther and get out of debt.

If you don’t have it, don’t spend it.

If you don’t have it, don’t spend it.
Do you have credit cards with balances carrying over each month? If so, you must stop using them for anything but an all-out emergency. If there’s something you want to buy, use cash or check, or a debit card but stop using credit. You need to think of your personal finances as a business: a corporation has a CEO who answers to the Board of Directors and the board answers to the stockholders. Be your own CEO and ask yourself the hard questions that any good Board of Directors will ask: What is this doing for our bottom line? How is this benefiting the long-term stability of this company? You may not have Donald Trump’s millions, but you can still play the game smart and shrewdly spend your money to get the best value and the biggest bang for the buck.

Spend it, don’t waste it.

When you decide to spend your money, make sure you’re buying value and not junk. Wasting your money is a waste of time, energy and resources. You’ve worked hard for each dollar you have so make each dollar count for as much as possible. You don’t have to give up the things you love, just find different ways to enjoy it. For instance, if you love going out for steak dinners, try learning how to grill your own and save a ton of money but still eat well.

Don’t buy a Cadillac when a Volkswagen will do.

For every purchase you make, ask yourself if you need the newest, brightest, fastest gadget on the market. Can you get by just as well with last year’s model on closeout? Would you be paying for features you won’t ever use? Figure out what you need and then decide the most cost-effective route to meet your needs.

Pay your bills the day they arrive.

Your credit card charges are based on calendar days. When the bill arrives, don’t set it aside until the due date, pay it the day it arrives and you’ll incur less interest charges.

Devise a strategy for paying off credit cards.

Gather up all of your credit cards and other loans that you’re paying each month. In order to pay them off, you’ll need to pay more than the minimum each month. Start with the debt with the highest interest rate and focus only on that account until it is paid off, continuing with paying the minimums on all other accounts. Even if you only come up with an extra $25 each month, this is a good start to attacking your debt. As you look for other ways to save, you can start contributing more money toward debt each month. Once you pay off an account, take all that money you were sending to that creditor each month and start paying down the next most expensive account. You’ll still send out the same amount of money each month for paying off credit, but as you pay off accounts, that money will go much farther toward getting you out of debt.

Getting out of debt is a long-term process that requires tenacity, discipline and a willingness to make changes in how you spend and how you think about money. Give these ideas a chance and soon you will start to see positive changes not only in your life but in your bank account.