How many people do you know who have zero debt?  I personally know of four people. These people are either on the verge of retirement or kids in their early 20’s who did not go to college.  Seriously, I can only think of four people, out of EVERYONE I know, who aren’t in some kind of debt.  How insane is that?

Are you coming up with similar numbers?  If you have “normal” friends and family, it is highly likely you don’t know many people who aren’t in debt.  The reason for this is because pretty much everyone believes debt is necessary to have a “normal” life.  People have car loans, home loans, student loans, credit cards, medical bills, loans on furniture, TVs, personal loans, I could go on and on.

I used to be a person who thought debt was a normal part of life.  Everyone has it so it must not be bad, right?  I rationalized taking on personal loans, car loans, student loans, home loans, medical bills.  I rationalized myself into $320,000 of debt.  I had a good job, my husband had a good job and we were generally responsible people. What was the harm?

The problem with this thinking is it will lead you to making the same decisions over and over, and you will be trapped by lenders forever.

If you are going to start dumping debt, you have to believe debt is WRONG.  You have to believe this at your core and learn to defend it.

Here’s why:

You have to believe debt is wrong so you stop accumulating more debt.

This seems like such a simple concept, but it tends to trip people up.  You have to say no to debt over and over and over again. You are bombarded with advertisements about financing at 0%, “same as cash” and all of your friends and family will talk about loans in casual conversation every single day.  Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly being brainwashed into thinking debt is okay.

If you believe debt is wrong, you will never put yourself in a position of adding more debt to your life.

You have to believe debt is wrong to motivate you to destroy it.

If you are staring at a mountain of debt, it is going to be pretty intimidating.  I know this because my debt looked like Mount Everest. I had to find a way to get so angry, so frustrated and so desperate to get out of debt, nothing would stop me.  If you know borrowing money is wrong, you are going to get pretty mad about it when you reflect on what you’ve done.  This will build a fire and you are going to use that fire to kick yourself in the butt and start hiking up that mountain!

Paying off debt is not easy.  It is going to require time and sacrifices on so many levels.  This anger will fuel you during challenging times throughout the process.

You have to believe debt is wrong to stand firm during the debt payoff journey.

The beginning of starting to pay off some of your debt is such a magical and awesome time.  You are fresh, you are excited, you are driven and nothing is going to stop you!  When you feel like you are hitting a brick wall somewhere in the middle is when you will have a moment of weakness.

This will be the time when your car breaks down, your kid gets sick, you find out you’re pregnant or you lose your job.  Your initial reaction will be to finance a car, blow your budget eating out or give up altogether. You will want to ease up on paying off debt because things are getting a little tough.  People around you will tell you-you’re crazy and to just live your life.  Even your own husband will have moments of weakness and try to convince you that he NEEDS a new truck and financing it is okay.  Instead of believing these lies, you have to cling to the truth – debt is wrong – to stay on the right financial path.

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You have to believe debt is wrong to make the tough decisions that will impact the rest of your life.

Since proclaiming ourselves to be on a debt free journey, we have had family loans offered to us, we have been asked to loan family money, and we have been faced with material wants to do certain home projects (paint, fence, concrete the driveway, finishing the basement, etc.).  It was like as soon as we decided we weren’t going to allow money to control us anymore, a million choices came up to try to take us off the right course.

You will face tons of tough decisions about how and where to spend your money when you are trying to pay off debt.  You may feel guilty about not buying your husband the most amazing grill for Father’s Day, but you have to know giving him the gift of not adding debt to your life is even better.

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Let me share a story with you:

I am an intense budgeter and I am extremely self-disciplined.  My family is committed to paying cash for everything, always.  NO EXCEPTIONS.  We have been practicing this philosophy for almost three years now.

We decided to have someone come and give us a quote for finishing our basement, so we had a ballpark figure of what we would need to save to accomplish this at some point in our future.  The woman who came to our house to design and price what we wanted…..she. was. good.

One of the first questions she asked us was how we were planning to finance this and not to worry because they actually had a wonderful financing option through their company.  When I told her we were planning to save for it and pay cash, she laughed at me.  She then proceeded to tell me that people save up money to buy a couch, they don’t save up money to buy a car.  This basement project is like the car in her example.

What I wanted to say to her was, “we pay cash for cars too.”  But I didn’t (mostly because my husband was giving me that look to keep my mouth shut).  She took measurements and designed our basement for us.  Then she laid out the “value” of everything and gave us the estimate.  With some quick math she told us we could have a super low monthly payment, they would take 11% off the total right then if we agreed to the contract and they would give us a really low-interest rate on the loan.  She also mentioned that since it was tax season, if we used our refund to help with our payments for the first two years, it would cut our payments in half!

I mean it was insane how she was selling this to us.  When we said no thanks, she made a call to her “boss” and let him know where she was in our quote process and asked if she had missed anything.  The way she paused when saying it let me know that was their “code phrase” for they’re on the fence, offer another discount.

At the end of the entire dealing, she had knocked our total estimate down by 20%, had a low monthly payment for us and had already told us how to spend our tax refund.  I mean, could you ask for better service?  I felt almost beat up after the consultation because I was in a battle against her “creative math” to sell us our low payment.  I completely understand how people are sold on borrowing money. For a low monthly payment, she could have the basement of our dreams done in the next few months. Boom!  Instant gratification.

I was very tempted by this offer and I am a die-hard budgeter and believer in debt being EVIL.  Without knowing debt is bad, we probably would have said yes and added an obscene amount of debt to our already giant mountain.

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You have to fully believe debt is wrong.  Without this belief you will find yourself acquiring more debt, making excuses to keep yourself from dumping your debt and you will continue to make poor financial choices.  The success you have obtaining your financial freedom is directly dependent on the strength you have to say no to debt.

Start today.  I am right here with you.

Do you have any stories of salespeople being so good, they almost got you?

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