Why a Debt Free Living Standard Seems All But Unattainable for Most of Us
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Muna wa Wanjiru
We all want to live carefree lives without a thought for what tomorrow will bring, and without a thought as to how the money will come in. Unfortunately this is only a pipe dream for many of us, and instead of having a carefree existence most of us are covered in debt, struggling to find a way out of the money problems we seem to constantly find ourselves in. Indeed a debt free living standard seems all but unattainable for most of us.
What can we do then, to attain a debt free living? Well, there are many things that you can do to get into this type of lifestyle, but the very first thing will have to be an awareness of your own particular money situation. You will need to find out how much your total monthly income is, (less taxes etc), and then also learn how much you normally spend in a month. Ideally to have a debt free living lifestyle, you will need to spend not more than you earn.
This means that you can spend however much you want of the total income you generate, as long as you stay within these bounds. Or, if you are going to knowingly step over these bounds, you should ideally be prepared to cut back on some things over the next few months as you pay back the extra money you have taken on credit.
Or in other words, if you are going to use your credit card for a larger than normal type of purchase, then you should either be prepared to pay it all back by the end of the month, thereby sparing yourself the problem of having to pay interest as well, or you should be prepared to cut back on other things for the next month or two while you pay back this sum of money that you took against your credit card.
This is probably going against the grain of everything that you have practiced to date concerning your credit cards and other types of loans, but the truth of the matter is that you want to have a debt free living then you will need to make some changes to your lifestyle, even if these changes don’t necessarily jibe with the way the world goes round.
Some form of compromise is going to be necessary on your part to have a debt free living, and doing things like this, where you don’t use your credit card indiscriminately just because you can, is as a good place to start as any. Well, that and remembering to live within your means will be a good start to staying debt free!
Lara
We all want to live carefree lives without a thought for what tomorrow will bring, and without a thought as to how the money will come in. Unfortunately this is only a pipe dream for many of us, and instead of having a carefree existence most of us are covered in debt, struggling to find a way out of the money problems we seem to constantly find ourselves in. Indeed a debt free living standard seems all but unattainable for most of us.
What can we do then, to attain a debt free living? Well, there are many things that you can do to get into this type of lifestyle, but the very first thing will have to be an awareness of your own particular money situation. You will need to find out how much your total monthly income is, (less taxes etc), and then also learn how much you normally spend in a month. Ideally to have a debt free living lifestyle, you will need to spend not more than you earn.
This means that you can spend however much you want of the total income you generate, as long as you stay within these bounds. Or, if you are going to knowingly step over these bounds, you should ideally be prepared to cut back on some things over the next few months as you pay back the extra money you have taken on credit.
Or in other words, if you are going to use your credit card for a larger than normal type of purchase, then you should either be prepared to pay it all back by the end of the month, thereby sparing yourself the problem of having to pay interest as well, or you should be prepared to cut back on other things for the next month or two while you pay back this sum of money that you took against your credit card.
This is probably going against the grain of everything that you have practiced to date concerning your credit cards and other types of loans, but the truth of the matter is that you want to have a debt free living then you will need to make some changes to your lifestyle, even if these changes don’t necessarily jibe with the way the world goes round.
Some form of compromise is going to be necessary on your part to have a debt free living, and doing things like this, where you don’t use your credit card indiscriminately just because you can, is as a good place to start as any. Well, that and remembering to live within your means will be a good start to staying debt free!
Lara
