How to break the cycle of revolving debt
Well this is a post I have been itching to write for a while. I have been in and out of high debt for years. When I finally get myself out of the VERY VERY deep hole I dug myself; nobody but me, I find a way to get right back into it. I can’t even count the amount of times I have taken a loan or withdrawal from an account to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in debt. But what do I do right after that? get myself into the same scenario.
In this post you will learn what 4 things I changed to stop the never-ending cycle of debt.
Spend what you have, no more
Still save! (Set up automatic transfers to savings)
Use cash not cards(remove all cards from online stores)
Think before you buy(48 hours)
For years I have asked myself, what do I do to stay out of debt? It should be easy right. My car is payed off, so no car payment for me. I have a steady full time job with decent pay. Why do I keep doing this to myself. I’m just adding so much stress back onto my shoulders by racking up the debt AGAIN!
Until one day I finally had had enough…I had just paid off my $36,000 in credit card debt. yep folks you read that right, $36,000 in credit card debt. one might say “how could you have so much debt just in credit cards?” well when you have 3 kids and one income its hard to pay the bills sometimes and I didn’t let my kids feel the financial struggles when we moved into our new house. That was. wrong of me, in so many ways. I was fooling myself.
2024 housing market
Interest rates are through the roof
Let me paint this picture for you. It’s 2024 and the housing market is insane, rentals are outrageously priced for the amount of bedrooms I would need for 3 kids. Buying a house is even worse because of the High High high interest rates. So What do I do? I get into a house with a mortgage payment I can’t afford. It’s a good neighborhood and my parents ended up helping me out but I was strapped and scared I would owe my parents for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to be indebted to them forever.
So I turned to budgeting. Something I hadn’t really done before. I had definitely written out my budget before but never really followed it. So I downloaded a budget sheet and input every expense and income I had. I quickly realized I spent way too much money on eating out and fun things for the kids. I had a lot of places I could cut back on spending. I Immediately adjusted my budget to help me to be able to afford my life and not be racking up my debt once again. I also followed these 4 steps to help me stay out of debt.
1. Spend what you have, no more. Seems so simple doesn’t it. Seems so easy to just spend what money you have. Well when you have credit cards with limits you may think, like me, that you have money to spend. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Boy was I fooling myself. We’re not talking about Santa clause here.
It was hard for me to wrap my brain around not using my credit cards at all. I cut them up and made sure to keep just two available in a safe place for emergencies.
2. Still save! (Set up automatic transfers to savings.) I can’t stress this enough, Save, Save, Save! Even though you are trying to not overspend and only use the money you are making, You still need to save money for the future and emergency expenses. Also travel and holidays. So set up a certain amount every paycheck to go into a separate account or savings. It doesn’t have to be a large amount, any amount is good. Just make sure you are putting some money away for a rainy day.
3. Use cash not cards(remove all cards from online stores.) I know it’s a strange request to use cash but it will be worth it in the end. I pulled out a certain amount of money every paycheck and that was all I had for groceries every month. I had to bargain and look for the best deal for the eggs this week or we weren’t eating them. I had a hard time with this one also, taking all your payment cards off the online stores. Sorry Amazon, it’s nothing personal, just trying to save some money. Taking the cards off those sites will help you not make impulse buys. With no apps and nothing logged in or payment card attached it would be hard to buy anything online. That one helped me A LOT!
4. Think before you buy. It is easy to see that one sweatshirt on Facebook that is so adorable and in a neutral color. You really want to buy it right now. But instead of buying it you think on it overnight. What harm is it going to do to think on it overnight. Most times when I do that I realize I didn’t really need the product. I was just trying to impulse buy. I think about all the other things I could use the money for like bills and food.
All in all I think budgeting was very helpful along with these 4 steps I followed. Thanks for reading about my money struggles, hopefully someone can relate.
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