Day #13 - Financial Goals (Part 2)

We will never get ahead financially until we get out of debt. Debt erodes our ability to save; debt eliminates our ability to accumulate wealth; debt can lower our credit scores and make it harder to access capital for investment; a Biblical proverb equates debt with slavery! (Proverbs 22:7)

I learned this the hard way. I was one of those people that assumed that debt was normal and acceptable. That all changed one day when I heard a preacher say that we should purchase our cars with cash. I thought the man was drunk! As I sat and listened to him, he explained that we were paying more than we should for our cars when we add the interest payments to the principal payments. I did the math and realized that on a three year car note, I was paying $4,800 in interest on a $20,000 car! And that was with an 8% interest rate. Some people are paying as much as 28% interest on auto loans!

More important than the money I was spending was the fact that I had never given it a moment of thought. I felt completely normal doing what I was doing. And unfortunately, I was normal. Americans generally use borrowing as a means of purchasing cars and almost everything else. While that is great for the banks and the finance companies, it eats away at our financial capacity. And we feel as if we have no choice. I realized that I did have choices and that I had to change my attitude about money.

And that is what I am asking all of us to do – to change our attitudes about money starting with debt. Of course none of us is going to become debt free in a day or two. But if our attitude is that it is preferable to be free of all debt, then our goals and our decisions will reflect that attitude. We will stop charging items on our credit cards that will take years to pay off. We will not feel like we need a new car as soon we make our last loan payment. We will treat debt as a temporary condition and really devise a strategy to get out of debt. My workbook offers a comprehensive strategy to do just that! You can order it right now. dfree® Lifestyle: 12 Steps to Financial Freedom

Not all of us are like I used to be. I spent my way into debt. But people are in debt for a variety of reasons: some due to medical expenses; some due to prolonged unemployment; some due to divorces; some due to student loans. It really doesn’t matter how we get into debt. What matters is how we plan to get out of debt. The challenge is to hate debt so much that we make getting out of of debt our priority.

When we are debt free, we can open businesses, invest money, donate generously and live stress free lives. That is the next step as we establish our financial goals.

I have created a free resource that you can use to set your debt reduction goals and celebrate your success. It is the Billion Dollar Challenge and I am inviting all of us to pay off one billion dollars in debt together and then to shift that money to investments that will help us rise financially.

You can join the challenge today there are no fees or charges involved. Billion Dollar Challenge.

                         Action items:

1.     Make a list of all of your debts.

2.     Set a date when you would like to be debt free.

3.     Obtain my workbook and use it to start your debt free process.