Get Out of Debt Part 6: STOP Spending/No New Debt

Along the road of debt freedom, you have to make some tough decisions. This can come in forms of making cuts to your spending and making adjustments to consolidate debt. However, one of the toughest items we must face is the point where you have to just stop extra spending. Life happens, and we still have wants, but you have to stop. Until you stop spending, you will be in a cycle of debt and near freedom.

Stop the excess spending

When you are thinking about discontinuing extra spending, you have to be specific. For the items you have to have to survive, you obviously will not cut this out of your continual spending. What we are referring to is the one-off items we tend to buy. Much of this comes from mental hijacking when we are in the store. This is also seen in random eating out or drinking. These are the items you wouldn’t have cut from the budget, because they are normal purchases you account for. These are the impulse buys.

No new debt

The next layer of stopping with the spending would be to stay away from adding more debt. Spending cash you have is one thing, spending it on your credit card adds the next layer. When you are adding random spending on your credit card, you are not paying it off right away and adding more to your debt. You have to be able to stop using your credit cards completely. Again, until you discontinue the process of bringing in additional debt value, you will be fighting against yourself to diminish debt.

The process of stopping the trend of extra spending seems simple, but it is so much harder than most think. We are impulsive by nature, and spending provide a bit of a high. Be mindful of your habits, and stay strong!