Do you use your credit card like its part of your income? What is your balance? If you had to post your debt for the public to see, would you be embarrassed?

Our society has made it easy to access credit cards with high interest rates, get loans we can’t afford, spend money we don’t have. Some people have accepted credit card debt as a way of life. It’s not! You should not be okay paying on a balance every month. That is not normal. Yes, we’ve accepted it as a society, doesn’t mean its right.

You have acknowledged that your credit is terrible, now what to do about it. This is the tough part that no one wants to here because its not the easy road. Answer: You need to be frugal. Wait no, YOU NEED TO STOP SPENDING MONEY ON EVERYTHING! That’s right, you need to spend the bare minimum to get by. You will eat peanut butter and jelly. You will ride a bike, or walk to the grocery. Lets break it down.

Say you make $2000 a month take home

SUBTRACT:

Rent: 400

Utilities: 200

Car payment: 350

Car Insurance: 60

Cell phone: 65

Total:1075

Whats leftover: $925

You have a $5,000 credit card balance. If we factor in gas:$100 and food:$200 you are now left $625 a month. I’ll take off $125 for misc. and now $500 left will go directly to the credit card payment. Have you done the math yet? It is going to take you 10 months to pay this off! Yep, for almost a year you need to bust your ass to pay off this debt. Yeah it will be hard, but just think of the freedom after those ten months you will have. Do anything, go anywhere. Financial freedom.

This isn’t something new. For thousands of years we lived on the money we made, not credit cards. This myth that it’s okay to use credit cards is something our society as a whole needs to break. Even if its one person at a time. Baker over at Man vs. Debt gets it. His wife, daugther, and himself decided they wanted this freedom. What did they do? Live on nothing for months, sold their crap, until most of their debt was paid off. That isn’t it though. They wanted more out of life with this new freedom. They decided it was time for a new surrounding. Australia was their ticket to happiness. They were both teachers, working whatever they could (some really crappy jobs at first). But they made it, and so can you.

Remember that material goods will only get you so far, its freedom that people crave deep down inside. Financial freedom is just a little part of that freedom.