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several excellent books on living debt-free that have been available to all for the last few years. Unfortunately, we don’t make it a point to read these books unless we have a credit problem. I speak from past experience on this one. However, if you can change your thinking to educate yourself about credit and how it works before taking on your first – and I hope only – credit card, it would be the best investment in your financial future that you could ever make. The best books I’ve read on this crucial topic are as follows: How To Get Out Of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously by Jerrold Mundis, Debt-Proof Living by Mary Hunt, and Living Debt Free by Bob Hammond. All three offer practical systems for tracking your spending, and very valuable tips on alternatives for entertainment and vacations that will help you keep more money in your checking account, rather than giving it to the banks and financial institutions in the form of credit card payments with outrageous interest charges. It is obvious that banks and financial institutions aren’t nearly as customer-friendly as they all claim to be, and the way they treat credit card consumers who run into difficulty paying back their debt is living proof. So let’s not rely on them to protect us from indulging our worst instincts when it comes to spending. We must take financial precautions against high spending ourselves. Begin by taking out all the credit cards you have in your wallet right now. If you have only one, good for you. But protect yourself even further. Take out your most recent statement, and find out exactly what you have spent so far, if you don’t pay the full amount owed each month. If you’ve run up $1,000 or more, now may be the time to either cut up that card, or if you can’t bring yourself to do that, at least put it in a place that is safe, but one that you’re not likely to get to easily. Don’t spend any more on that card until you’ve paid off a significant portion of that amount, or better yet, the entire sum. Do you have more than one credit card? Get your statements on each one, add up how much you owe on each, and add those sums up to determine your total debt. It’s a very sobering process, no doubt about it. But it’s essential if you don’t want to go further into the hole. Once you have your total credit card figure, it’s time to cut up all but one of your credit cards, and put the remaining one away. Then begin the slow journey to repaying the debt you owe now, rather than waiting for a possible disaster to strike later. This is where the aforementioned books will be of enormous value, and cost much less than an all-day financial seminar. By getting out of debt now, or avoiding debt in the future, you can cheerfully say "Screw you" to the folks who slammed the door on bankruptcy for the average consumer. AUTHOR: Susan Levine  TAGS: Opinion money Family US living job BOOKMARK: Digg it | Add to Del.ICIO | Add to FARK ACTIONS: Comment Save Print Register free acount  |
