How many battles are fun? With maybe the exception of sports, the term “battle” has a negative connotation. In almost every battle, even if you are the victor it breeds images of blood, sweat or tears all the way to the end.
In many cases, the longer the battle drags on the harder it may get, the more difficult victory is to achieve, the more damage is inflicted.
Debt however is one of the few battles that breaks the rules. Debt starts out at the hardest. Debt demands the most sacrifice at the beginning. The damage has been done.
As you continue your battle on debt something rare occurs. It gets easier. Like clawing your way out of quicksand, the closer to the edge you get, the faster you can move. As more of that debt is left behind, you have more resources to spend tackling what is in front of you.
As you make progress, debt reduction becomes fun. You get excited about every new creditor that has become an ex-creditor. Stress on your soul lightens, the sky is bluer, and the grass is greener.
This article was featured in the Carnival of Debt Reduction. Please check out this carnival for many other great articles about personal finance.
Before long your slow climb becomes a jog and then a sprint to the finish line of debt freedom.
If you are in debt, please for the sake of your own mental health, your financial future and for the sake of your loved ones, win this battle!
As I have slowly immersed myself in this wonderful world of the blogging and unexpectedly found the personal finance niche, I have discovered some amazing resources. There are so many inspirational writers, tons of great ideas and knowledge, and hundreds of tools and spreadsheets waiting to serve you. And best of all, it’s free! Gotta love that.
If you are serious about your debt you need a budget. Budgets are $exy has a page dedicated to Budget Spreadsheets. Anyone that can make budgets sexy deserves credit. For this reason I have added J.Money to my blogroll.
To keep you motivated, you should look at how much you are paying in interest every month. Keep oxygen close by in case you pass out when you see by using the Interest Spreadsheet from Debt Free Adventures. I just left my first comment over at Matt’s blog and spend about an hour reading through his posts. If debt reduction is a primary objective of yours, Debt Free Aventures should be on your blog list too.
Here is one of the coolest spreadsheets I have seen that will help with your debt battle. The Debt Reduction Snowball Calculator from Vertex42 gives you an instant picture of the impact of different debt reduction strategies. You can snowball, avalanche, or customize the order in which debts are paid off. Vertex42 is not a blog, but a site you should investigate if you are also a lover of excel.
Now go have a ball, and become debt free!
If you like to be challenged to see things with a fresh perspective, if you like to learn new ideas and different concepts, sign up for my RSS feed or enter your email address here to receive updates directly to your inbox.
photo by The U.S. Army
Debt is like battle… Intense!
Maybe you could create a historical battle map and plot your debt successes as battle successes. Like if someone payed off $2,000 in auto loans they advance and win the battle of Normandy on their way to 0 debt in Berlin. Kind of like a new version of Risk, but for personal finance.
Completely unrelated to that I saw you hosted a carnival yesterday. I haven’t done anything with these yet and am interested in learning more. Any advice?
.-= Ryan @ Planting Dollars´s last blog ..How to Win Through Quitting =-.
Ryan
I’ve already won the war but you have a great idea and it uses the lean principle of visual management so you get double points!
I’ll send some info on carnivals…
I like Ryan’s idea of turning debt reduction into a version of Risk. It would be the slowest game in history for most of us but it would give new meaning to paying off a credit card.
I’ll be checking out the Vertex42 spreadsheets, thanks for the links.
.-= David @ MBA briefs´s last blog ..The biggest marketing mistake you can make: 5 ways to measure customer satisfaction and keep your existing customers =-.
It would only be slow if we are typical consumers. Maybe the rules need to be set up to promote speed debt reduction… kinda like speed chess?
My wife and I had no idea how much our debt was costing us until we calculated it. I highly recommend it to anyone dealing with debt… which pretty much covers everybody in our country.
I’m thinking our gov’t should try using the spreadsheet! 😉
.-= Matt Jabs´s last blog ..3 Ways to Get Started Investing with $1,000 or Less =-.
Matt:
It was disgusting when I first realized how much our debt was and did cost us.
Any chance you have a connection in Washington? I agree, they could learn a lot from the personal finance blogs of the web!
If The U.S. Government Read Personal Finance Blogs
[…] the Muda calls the battle of debt reduction a fun […]