Do you have good reasons for not paying off your debt? Good for you. But what you need to understand is that with interest, every month that passes means you pay hundreds or thousands of more dollars. Even if you are making all of your minimum payments, you aren't really getting ahead. I tried explaining this a client who hadn't used her credit card in over a year, but had been faithfully paying the minimum payment each month. She just couldn't grasp it until I showed her last year's statement for May. When compared to this year's statement, she was shocked to find that she had only paid down her account by approximately $100. In a year. Yet, she had easily made $300 worth of payments. For $100 dollars. Each time interest is added to your account, you have to take a step to reduce the debt or watch it build on you. Putting off paying off means that you will pay higher interest each month than is necessary. Want a shock? Plug everything into one of the debt reduction calculators to see how long it will take you to be debt free. Two years ago, the calculator said 100 years of debt payments for my family. The only debt we now have is a mortgage, which has approximately 10 years left. We are working hard on paying it off earlier. I've heard all the excuses. My favorite is that "I am about to get a promotion, we'll pay it off then." That rarely happens, but no one sees that until it is too late. For example, I have a client that is counting on a $800 a month promotion to pay for daycare for another child (plans to work on addition for the family after promotion), pay off debt, pay for new car (purchased last month) and it will allow her husband to stop working overtime. The promotion isn't a sure thing and, yet, is already spent. There are plenty of people that believe that they have their bills under control. They may be just a little "tight" right now, but it's not too bad. Others have a goal in mind, but they just don't have the extra money to put towards paying off debt. And then there are those that are banking on a windfall, bonus or production. There are also those that start, but something always happens. Those that are waiting for the windfall often say that they have too much debt for the money to make any difference to their debt. They'll just wait until they get a whole lot of money to pay some things off. And it builds and builds. If you believe that you are in control of your debt, are you aware of how much interest you pay each month. You need to total it all up, for the month and for your lifetime. Look at how much money you simply are throwing away. Are you still okay with all the debt? Reducing your debt is a good goal to work on. Start now with no more excuses. Pay off your debt and save your interest dollars for you. |
