Category — Money

I’ve come to realize that financial stability is a choice……at least in the long term. I realize that is a rather general statement, but it’s a broad topic. If we’re in a bad situation with our money, and we take a long hard look at our life, the far majority of people would have to admit that they are where they are because of poor decisions. That includes me. How bad the situation is depends on how bad the choices we make are.

For instance, I’m in my mid-thirties, and I have approximately $13k in consumer debt, and that’s aside from my $85k mortgage payoff. The thing is, that debt has been reduced by about $5,000 in the past year or so. I’ve been carrying this debt for years. I’m talking like seven or eight years. Now I’ve had some “unlucky” things happen(no emergency fund) and I’ve made some very poor decisions. The decisions not only got me in debt, but they’ve kept me in debt for all these years. I haven’t taken on new debt in a long time, but bad decisions have led me to spending money on other things rather than paying off debt. The debt has hung around and become part of the family. It’s an anchor holding my ship out in a stormy sea.

Now I’ve made a decision that this debt will be eliminated. Period. Whatever I have to do, I’m ready to make it go away…..forever. In order to do that, I think we have to come to a certain level of contentment. That brings me to my point. In order to ever have any money and in order to actually get out of debt, we have to find rest and contentment where we are and with what we have. If we can’t come to that place, there will always be something on our horizon that we want to spend our money on the next time we get paid.

So, the question is, are you content? I really believe that I am. Sure, there are things that I want to spend money on, but they are gonna have to wait, because I’m on a mission to clear out my debt. I’m shooting for 18 months.