“Who Is Going To Help The American People To Get Out of Debt?”
I just saw someone searched for “Who Is Going To Help The American People To Get Out of Debt?” and landed here on the GetOutOfDebt.org site.
It might be tough for me to help all the people that are going to be in financial trouble all by myself, but I’m doing my best to help.
But I can use your help as well. It does not cost you anything to help and I’ve made a list of six perfectly free ways you can help me to help others.
Together you and I might not be able to help everyone, but we’ll do our best to do the most that we can do.
So the answer to “Who Is Going To Help The American People To Get Out of Debt?” is you and me. As a team, we can do anything.
We’ll try to do the right thing and look forward to the good karma that will flow our way in return.
Here is an enormous and massive hug for all your help.
Steve
5 Ways to Cut Spending (without cramping your lifestyle)
James contacted me recently and wanted to contribute this guest post for the site. “Sure!”, I said. If you would like to contribute a guest post, bring it on, just contact me.
The web is full of advice on spending less. It’s just a shame that most tips involve doing without – no more holidays, no more car, no more social life…
Yet the expression ‘no pain, no gain’ isn’t always relevant. There are plenty of ways to save cash without missing out on the good things in life. We’ve put together a few examples. They won’t change your life, but they might just prove a point – that you can cut your costs without cramping your lifestyle.
Tip #1 – Trade your skills
Money isn’t the only way to pay for things. Your skills and your time could be valuable commodities. What if you could ‘pay’ your baby-sitter by mowing their lawn twice? Or do someone’s ironing in return for two lifts to the shops?
You could organize swaps with your family, friends and neighbors. The more people you get involved, the easier it should be to find someone who has something you want – and wants something you have.
Tip #2 – Shun the shops
How often do you go food shopping? Would you be able to go half as often and bring back twice as much each time? If you think you can, it’s well worth trying out.
Say you shop once a week and spend $20 per visit on things you don’t really need. If you shopped every two weeks, you probably wouldn’t be comfortable ‘wasting’ any more on impulse buys per visit, so this could be an easy way to save $40 a month.
Plus, you’re more likely to stick to what you really need when you’re buying more – when you’re forced to pay attention to the size and weight of your shopping, whether you’re fitting it in the car or carrying it home on foot.
Tip #3 – Try something new
On the subject of shops, it’s no secret that discount supermarkets tend to do well during hard times. The mother of Karl and Theo Albrecht (as in ALbrecht Discount, better known as ALDI) is reputed to have said “The worse off the people are, the better off we are”.
Many people turn to discount shops – as well as supermarkets’ own brands – during times of economic hardship, and stick with them once times are good again!
Hide the labels and there’s a good chance you couldn’t tell the expensive version from the cheap one anyway. If you’re looking for objective proof, you’ll need to cook two similar meals – one using cheaper ingredients, the other using more expensive ingredients. Try them out and see if your guests can tell which one cost more.
Tip #4 – Who needs cash?
Books, PCs, games, clothes… The computer game you sell to a second-hand store for £2 could sell for £10 the next day.
The age-old tradition of bartering could deliver much better results. If anyone you know has (for example) the same games console, shoe size or taste in books as you, you could trade your items directly and cut out the middle man altogether.
It’s the kind of thing that the internet could really accelerate – one e-mail to your family and friends could easily reach your family’s friends, your friends’ families and so on. The more people get involved, the greater the variety you’ll all have to choose from.
Tip #5 – Don’t judge a book by its cover
Dented tins and ripped labels can be your ticket to good food at a good price. They won’t change the taste, but there’s a strong chance they’ll affect the cost.
Many supermarkets keep a ‘bargain bin’ where they can sell off slightly damaged goods. It’s often near the end of the shop, so it might be worth taking a different path around the shop and checking out the bargains before you move on to the rows and rows of normal prices.
Over to you
These are just five simple ideas. You might like one of them, or all, or none! Hopefully, they might get you thinking about other small changes that could make a big difference to your budget but not your lifestyle.
Whatever kind of debt you’re dealing with – and whether you’re going it alone or receiving debt help from a financial specialist – cutting back on your spending is one of the most important changes you’ll have to make. Why not make it as painless as possible?
Brenda Writes The Squirrel Asking For Advice. Is She Nuts!
While I’m always scampering to give you great advice, you do realize that I am a squirrel in search of nuts to hoard for desperate times. Who knows if I’m the best supplier of financial advice. But one thing is for certain, I think a lot of humans could learn something from us squirrels about preparing for lean times. And we squirrels could learn a thing or two from you humans, like how to read the word ELECTRICITY.
Brenda sent this question in via treenet. If you are brave enough, you can too!
“I have approximate1y $34,000 in debt, all credit cards that I have kept moving around from one company to another to try and get interest free payments for 6 months to a year. They charge a 3% fee.
The kicker is I have excellent credit but Im down to 300 dollars a month operating cash.
I am retired and went through a bad time and started charging. I don’t want to file bankruptcy. I want to play my bills but I can’t on my salary; which is approximately $3,000 a month. In addition to the above debt, I have a mortgage of $1200 a month and a home equity loan of $35,000.
I do pay on time, but I cant keep up anymore trying to pay more than the minimum requirement. So, my question to you is; these cards are through American Express, Chase, and other companies like that so Im guessing they are what you call unsecured loans.
Can any company help me reduce those balances? ”
The Get Out of Debt Squirrel Says:
Brenda,
I would bet a month of acorns that all that time you were shuffling your balances around, they were increasing as well. Low rate balance transfers, simply as a stalling technique, can be bad. But a low rate balance transfer can be used as a smart way to get out of debt if you pay the balance off in full before the end of the introductory rate period.
And while you have an excellent credit report, which is admirable, your credit report isn’t going to help you to get out of debt if you have no available money to repay your debt each month.
At this point you have only a few realistic options.
Option 1
Continue on the path you are on, but the odds are that approach will be doomed to fail once you can’t shift your balances to the next low rate card or you add to the balances owed.
Option 2
Tap into your equity to borrow about $20,000 and use that money to settle your debts for less than you owe. There are consequences to doing that but it may be a better approach than bankruptcy so you can stay in your house.
Option 3
You could try a debt management plan from a credit counseling agency but since your monthly payments are already artificially low because of the introductory rate offers you are on, I don’t think that will help much.
Option 4
Now some may call this suggestion crazy but, bankruptcy is worth considering. Based on your age, income and working status it might make better sense for you to consider bankruptcy. But before you make any decision about if bankruptcy is for you I’d strongly suggest that you talk to a bankruptcy attorney to discuss how it will help and/or impact you. (You can find a local bankruptcy lawyer here.)
While you may have to give up the equity in your home or be forced to sell it to free some equity, a good bankruptcy attorney could possibly show how the sale of your house in this market may not return anything to use towards the debts and thus prevent the sale of your home in bankruptcy.
As long as you don’t start building up debts again, the fresh start you’d get in bankruptcy will eliminate all of your debt to give you some financial safety room on a monthly basis.
As painful as bankruptcy may feel or sound, based on your situation it is probably a solution you should strongly consider.
Why Do You Want to Get Out of Debt? Is it for Freedom or Stress?
It’s interesting to see the many reasons why people want to get out of debt.
Cast your vote now and get your opinion in the voting.
How to Get Out of Debt - Part 1
What People Usually Say About Getting Out of Debt
All day, every day, I read and hear the same pleas and wishes from people that want to get out of debt. See if any of these sound familiar to you.
“I need fast help in gettin out of debt for free.”
“I don’t know how to get out of debt fast.”
“I need ways to get out of debt.”
“You got any tips on getting out of debt?”
“Get me out of debt.”
“We need help getting out of debt to buy first home.”
How to Get Out of Debt Fast
The only real way to get out of debt fast is to win the lottery or have someone die and leave you a lot of cash. Without borrowing money you will need a sudden injection of enough cash from some external source to make that dream happen.
So let’s get real here.
The ABC’s of Getting Out of Debt
Getting out of debt is truly not rocket science. In fact I’ve even helped people that were rocket scientists to get out of debt. Getting out of debt numerically is a simple exercise. If you need to make the numbers change all you have to do is spend less than you make and take part of the difference and use it to pay down your debt.
Oh if it only were that easy.
You see money problems are not about the amount of debt you have. They are about the choices and reasons why you got into debt in the first place.
Some people say that the debt was caused by an unexpected life event like a job loss or accident. In many cases the person was living close to the financial edge without any savings or investments and when one or two paychecks were lost, Kablam, they got in a jam.
So in that case the job loss was not the cause of the financial problem, the lack of savings and preparation was the reason that the financial problem exists. With ample savings in the bank a temporary reduction in income or unexpected expense would be annoying but not totally financially destructive.
A - Acceptance
The first step to really get out of debt is to see and accept the reality of your situation. Continued bargaining with yourself about the reality of your situation only prolongs it, not change it. The quicker you accept that you are in debt and need to pay close attention to getting out of debt and are willing to make changes to do so, that’s when you begin to get out of debt.
B - Behavior
Getting out of debt requires a fundamental behavior change on your part. You need to be ready, willing and able to change your behavior that led to your getting in debt in the first place. Take a close look at your spending. What do you spend extra money on and why?
It can be easy to locate extra money in your budget each month when you identify where money is leaking out of your pockets. For example, a daily cuppa exclusive coffee can wind up costing you $100 or more a month. And when you find your month too long by $100 it really isn’t due to not enough income, but how you elected to spend the income you do have.
I’m not saying that you need to kill Starbucks coffees out of your life, but maybe there are some cheaper alternatives for coffee or upon evaluation you may elect to stay with the designer coffee but cut it back.
If you are going out 8 nights a month to the clubs, why not do the same thing that you love to do but only go out 4 times a month instead? You’ll still have fun and cut your bar bills in half.
C - Conviction / Commitment
You must be committed to achieving your goal to get out of debt. Getting out of debt is slow and methodical work. Even if you got a debt consolidation loan you’d still have to pay it back. Nothing is going to change the month after month payments to get yourself out of debt.
The Secrets to Getting Out of Debt
The big secret that people never tell you about getting out of debt is that there are no secrets. It’s just boring, repetitive work that slowly but surely will dig you out of the hole that you’re in.
