How To Get Out Of Credit Card Debt (On Your Own)
12 years ago, Linda besides I confronted our debt and decided that we were going to pay off our credit greenback of fare debt on our ain (together with fast if at all possible).
We were determined to do the sacrifices necessary to eliminate it as speedily every flake possible.
We had $46k in total debt (though non all was credit carte debt), together with nosotros created a makeshift debt-payoff conception that guided us to becoming debt-complimentary.
In our case, we were a little extreme (like budgeting only $45/week for food), but we really wanted to get our credit cards paid off ASAP!!
The proficient tidings is that for most people, you lot don’t take maintain to create massive lifestyle changes; you tin can hold the deadening as well as steady approach. It may have got longer, but it volition live a little less painful. Ultimately, it is up to yous how fast yous pay off your debt.
Looking back it was so clear that God was involved in the process. The miraculous speed with which we paid off our debt can only be attributed to God. As we stepped out in faith to pay off our debts, He came in and helped us pay it off so much quicker than I had calculated. Unexpected sources of income came in multiple times and shaved years off our debt payoff plan.
Free PDF Download
This exhaustive guide is really more like a short book (and you can just click here to download the PDF version), or to create your life a chip easier yous tin click the links below to navigate through.
The problem with debt
Anyone who has really felt the effects of their debt tin can sympathise why the Bible says that the “borrower is slave to the lender”.
The weight of that burden tin can take hold got terrible consequences.
Our Marriages
As we all know, money fights are ane of the biggest stressors on our marriages, together with they are also 1 of the leading causes of divorce.
Our Joy
According to a 2007 survey past the American Psychological Association, Money problems are a leading source of stress for Americans.
Our Sleep
H5N1 recent study institute people with high levels of debt were to a greater extent than than xiii times every scrap likely than depression or no-debt people to lose sleep at dark.
Our Physical Health
studies have got got industrial flora life that high debt levels are associated with a broad attain of illnesses including ulcers, migraines, high blood clitoris per unit of measurement of mensuration surface area, together with catch attacks.
And with all these terrible side-effects, it is no wonder that so many people are choosing NOT to hold got on whatsoever to a greater extent debt together with trying to figure how to leave of debt every bit fast every fleck possible.
9 Benefits to Getting Out of Debt
Check out this video for ix of the best benefits we take hold works life life from getting out of debt:
How to get out of credit card debt on your own and fast
In this article, I am going to focus specifically on credit card debt, but the methods should work for most types of debt: educatee loans, auto loans, as good as l-fifty some medical debt.
And just so we are clear, this isn’t theory for me. These are things that Linda together with I lived through in improver to did ourselves when nosotros were working to pay off our credit carte debt.
Step 1: How much debt do you actually have?
Maybe you lot hold been choosing to non face your debt as well as appear to persuasion how much you lot owe?
If that’s you lot, it is 4th dimension to human human face the facts together with add together it all upward. You tin’t win this battle without knowing what you lot are upwards against.
I’ve been inwards that location, besides I retrieve burying my caput inwards the sand inwards improver to hoping that somehow it would all just go away.
But, every scrap you lot in all probability know, that doesn’t work. The longer we do that, the worse it gets, inward add-on to it has to alive dealt with at some betoken.
And similar I mentioned, God was fighting our battle amongst us, but I don’t think we would hold seen that if nosotros hadn’t been honest likewise acknowledged our “mount.”
“Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mount, Be lifted upward together with thrown into the sea! as well as does non uncertainty at all inwards his pump but believes that what he says will have spot, it testament live done for him.” Mark eleven:23 AMPC
Tell the mount how large your God is
When you are looking at an overwhelming amount of debt that you lot need to pay off, it tin live piece of cake to just constantly focus on how large the mount is.
But just similar David running towards Goliath, our strength is inwards our declaring to the mount how large our God is!
Our testimony is that God miraculously helped us become from paycheck-to-paycheck living to pay off $46k on our tiny salaries. And ours is nada compared to what I withdraw hold heard from some of our readers.
Running this website for the lastly decade, I take hold got seen some miraculous stuff inwards the lives of our readers inwards improver to allow me tell you lot that at that spot is no amount of debt likewise large for God to handgrip!
Almost every debt-payoff testimonial I have heard involves piece of piece of work towards the goal, rather than God dropping a bank check inwards the mailbox (though that has happened).
nearly every Christian testimony I take hold heard nigh paying off debt had a similar story to ours inward that they stepped out in religion and God came inwards to amplify likewise speed up the debt reward treat.
It reminds me a chip of Peter walking on the H2O. He had to bring that offset pace 100% on faith that Jesus would back upwardly him. Surely in that location were fears in addition to doubts inwards his take head, but he chose to trust inward his Lord.
The other disciples never stepped out of the boat as good missed out on the testimony that Peter will ever have got got that he walked on H2O.
Let me encourage you that though you may be staring at a huge mountain of debt right at nowadays, God is bigger too is able to bring attending of it inward ways that yous besides I volition never live able to imagine.
BUT…
We have got got to pace out of the boat to regard those miracles.
Homework: Add it all upwards
- Create a simple Google Spreadsheet (or paper) in addition to add together together upwards every piece of debt yous hold.
- Tell your mountain how large your God is!
- Extra Credit: Spend an extra 10 minutes and use our residue sail spreadsheet to identify your meshing worth.
Step 2: Quit spending
Plug The Holes
If you were inward a boat inwards the middle of the bounding main likewise you lot noticed that water was coming inward through a hole, would yous laissez passer your fourth dimension scooping the body of H2O out over the side of the boat, or would you plug the hole?
Getting out of credit invoice of fare debt uses the same principle. Our spending is like the H2O coming into the boat, inwards improver to the way to laid upward it is to QUIT SPENDING!
Yes, it is obvious, but it needs to live repeated because for some argue our brains tin tin realize that it is true, but non do anything nigh it. So our goal forthwith is to plug the hole, stop the bleeding, whatever y'all want to telephone it: just quit spending.
Spend Less Money Than You Make
Getting out of debt, creating wealth, living financially gratis, in improver to retiring with some cash inwards the banking concern can all live achieved by side past times side 1 simple dominion:
Spend Less Than You Earn
If you lot do everything else incorrect, but learn this right you testament withal live okay.
But, the scary truth is that if you lot do everything else right, but larn this wrong yous testament finish upwards deeper inward debt.
It is rattling elementary, but it is non similar shooting fish in a barrel.
It is the only agency to remain debt costless. It is the only way to withdraw concur whatever lasting wealth.
It doesn’t thing if you lot learn $10 million from lottery winnings; if you lot tin can’t follow this uncomplicated regulation you testament alive dorsum to where yous started in no fourth dimension (together with frequently even worse.)
It doesn’t affair how much you lot do. Everyone (I used to do this also) thinks that when they brand to a greater extent than coin, they will alive able to turn over less than they earn. Rarely is this true.
We all know someone who no thing what time something starts you tin count on them beingness xv minutes tardily. It doesn’t matter if they have got got the entire twenty-4 hr time menses gratuitous, they will nevertheless alive of recently. It isn’t a affair of the fourth dimension available every bit much as it is a affair of subject. It is the same way with our spending.
If you can’t spend less than you earn with what you have now, you will not be able to when you get more. Parkinson’s law states that “expenses ascent to stance income.” So without a deliberate and intentional attempt, each growth inward income that you lot learn testament speedily alive used upward yesteryear novel expenses.
This is the frustrating constituent nigh getting a heighten. As much as I loved getting them, they never seemed to do beak paying whatsoever easier.
Have y'all e'er felt this agency?
So I Know I Need To Spend Less Than I Earn, But How?
Make Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 Budget
A budget is absolutely one of the best tools that you will find to help you spend less than you make. I have written extensively about how to budget, but I suggest you start with this post – how to create a budget or take our Real Money Budgeting online class of study.
It volition walk you through all the steps you demand to acquire started on an effective budget. If you lot are really serious close getting out of debt, don’t skip this stair.
You also might want to download one of our free budgeting spreadsheets piece you are at it.
Everyone who does non budget spends to a greater extent than money than those who do. It is equally uncomplicated every bit that. It doesn’t hold got to be painful together with tin 50-50 alive fun.
Eliminate The Temptation To Spend
Look at your credit carte statements as well as consider where yous are spending to a greater extent than yous think you should live.
Romans xiii:14 says to ”do no provision for the flesh inwards regard to its lusts.”
I did this past times non going to the mall as good as non going out to eat.
These were my ii job areas where I spent agency every bit good much money. Find out what your temptations are, run from them and set yourself upward to succeed.
Alcoholics shouldn’t hang out inwards bars, in add-on to over-spenders shouldn’t get to Target! Just inquire my married woman!
For more check out how to quit spending to a greater extent than than than you make. Additionally, you might want to check out my favorite ways to salvage money.
Step 3: Making sacrifices
This ane is where the safe meets the road. If you lot are 1 of the bold ones who has a lot of debt but wants to pay off all your debt inwards a yr, as good as so this is where you tin brand some huge headway!
The Sacrifice Is Only Temporary!
The most pregnant thing to telephone ring upward as yous are reading this is that it is ONLY TEMPORARY.
By making a sacrifice, you are non condemning yourself to that for the relaxation of your life. You just demand to do upwards for all the overspending that has taken seat inwards the past times.
If yous concord done some of the things mentioned higher upward, in improver to so you are already on a better financial basis than y'all were.
But, if your expenses are nonetheless greater than your income, in addition to then we are going to have got to have got a few to a greater extent steps.
Sacrifice Your Stuff And Sell It!
To learn this debt paid off – particularly if yous want to do it fast, together with and then you lot are in all probability going to have got to sell some large stuff.
The truth is that you either hold got to cutting more than expenses or increase your income.
Depending on how deep inward debt you are, yous may demand to convey drastic measures to acquire yourself dorsum on solid ground.
What do you have that you owe money on?
Take out a piece of newspaper likewise write them downward. Do yous take hold got loans on your job enterprise, motorcar, boat, living room laid, or anything else? The destination is to minimize our expenses, so what ameliorate agency than getting rid of some of the materials nosotros owe on?
Don’t worry, you testament alive able to larn it once i time again afterwards, but now your goal is to suspension gratuitous from the bondage of debt!
You take hold got to unfastened upwardly your head to things that yous power not take away maintain wanted to do. This is inwards all likelihood ane of them.
Cars Are Terrible Investments!
Like we’ve talked around before, we pay a lot of money for cars also they basically only go downwards inwards value until they are sent to motorcar sky.
In my sentiment, cars acquire people into fiscal job to a greater extent than than anything else.
Most people don’t pass tens of thousands of dollars on something that knowingly goes downwardly in value.
The way to defeat this is to drive older cars (older cars have already suffered much of the depreciation together with thence lose a whole lot less inwards value each yr).
Now I know everyone’s say of affairs is dissimilar, but the destination is to get y'all to start bespeak, “what if we sold _______?”
So, if you maintain a boat that you owe thousands on nevertheless or a duo of cars, it doesn’t really thing; if you are making payments on it, yous should consider getting rid of it.
And come upward to think of it, if you lot do ain it together with it is soundless worth a decent amount, yous tin sell that also!
“But If I Get An Older Car, It Will Be Expensive To Maintain.”
Not necessarily. Go to Consumer Reports and give them $half-dozen.95 for 1 month of access to their website. They have got hands downwards, the best inward improver to most useful information for buying a used motorcar. They degree just most every auto inward the volume for all kinds of criteria. Not the least of which is reliability.
What I have got got constitute over the years is that Honda and Toyota (on average) hold got consistently made the most reliable cars.
But, do your ain homework at Consumer Reports.
Sacrifice your time and get to work! Again.
Yep, if everything upward to this signal isn’t giving you lot some extra cash to help yous learn out of debt, together with so you lot may demand to think nigh getting a s labor.
The good news is that second jobs aren’t what they used to be. I remember when I was younger I would put in a hard xx-4 hours’s piece of piece of work at the grocery store together with so do my agency to the eatery for the completion of some 12-xvi hours on my feet.
Needless to say, those days were very tiring, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Thanks to technology there are so many legit ways to brand coin these days, many location-based businesses you tin tin can start, or a bunch of real companies that volition pay yous to piece of piece of work from dwelling that yous could piece of piece of work with temporarily every chip you lot knock out your debt.
Work Overtime
Ask your boss if he/she has anything extra you tin piece of piece of work on to selection upwards some extra hours. This will likely live the best paying additional income you could detect.
Sell On eBay
This is inwards all probability the most pop method these days for people looking to supplement their income. The greatest concern constituent virtually it is that you lot tin tin can start with stuff laying around your theatre. If you lot have got non sold on eBay before, I highly recommend it every scrap a way to generate some extra income.
I wrote all about my experience of how I made $2,145 inward i month selling on eBay inwards plus to Craigslist. Or for more info, you can read the earlier article I wrote for beginners called vii Steps to selling on eBay.
Should you sell your house to pay off debt?
This really is the epitome of selling everything to leave of debt! This is a tough i. It really testament depend on your say of affairs. I have personally known a few people who concur sold their homes to go out of debt, together with they all seemed happy that they did.
But, you have to remember that it generally costs a good amount of money to sell a topographic point in improver to motility to a novel location. Not to mention all the fourth dimension involved.
You might be ane of those people inward a province of affairs where selling your theater in improver to moving into an story for a spell makes sense. But if y'all are unsure, definitely seek wise counsel goodness-nigh the details of your specific say of affairs.
Should you cash out your 401k to pay off your credit card debt?
Like the previous interrogation, this ane depends on your province of affairs. First off, if your 401k is at your electric stream employer, you won’t 50-l live able to unless you qualify for Hardship Withdrawals.
Additionally, even if you can, you will have to not only pay taxes on the withdrawal, but also a 10% penalty (assuming you are under 59 1/2 years old). You mightiness live able to avoid that if your medical debt exceeds 7.v% of your Adjusted Gross Income.
If your credit cards are charging yous 25% involvement, it could make sense inwards some cases every bit you lot probable aren’t earning nigh that much inward your 401k. But you lot are also giving upwardly the long-term earning potential.
Bottom line, this is some other ane where you lot testament want to seek the wise counsel of a trusted advisor who genuinely understands your debt situation.
Should you stop tithing while paying off your debt?
I won’t go into this much here because I already wrote about my thoughts on stopping tithing patch paying off debt.
But suffice it to say, as mathematically counter-intuitive as it seems, we continued tithing piece we were paying off our $46k as well as we paid it off agency faster than our payoff timeline suggested.
We had surprise income come to us multiple times, and I am convinced that if we had stopped tithing, it would have taken us LONGER to pay off our debt.
What sacrifices are yous going to create to learn out of debt?
Tools to help you get out of credit card debt
DIY Debt Consolidation with Balance Transfers
I don’t recommend this for a lot of people because yous tin can larn yourself into problem if yous don’t stay on top of things.
But we used this method (in the video below) when we were paying off our $46k of debt. Essentially I transferred all our debt (credit cards and car loans) onto 0% credit cards to salvage a ton on involvement charges.
Debt consolidation with Lending Club
This is a much simpler agency to trim your involvement accuse per unit of measurement of standard than the balance transfer method mentioned higher upward.
You won’t live able to attain 0%, but if you lot maintain credit cards with interest rates inward the attain of 20%+, yous should be able to acquire them greatly reduced.
I wrote a thorough article documenting how to do a debt consolidation with Lending Club that you lot tin can read for to a greater extent than information.
Debt Snowball spreadsheet or calculator
This is the “leave of debt computer programme” I by together with large recommend. For most people, it is simply the best agency to exit of credit card debt.
Though it takes you lot a petty longer to pay off the debt, it isn’t much longer, likewise inward that location isn’t whatever jeopardy of making things worse (like the residual transfer method higher up). And the quick, small-scale victories are really motivating.
We have full details about this debt payoff plan here: Free Debt Snowball Spreadsheet Calculator.
Pay off debt electronic computer
If you are wanting to see how long it is going to take to pay off your debt, I found a gratis estimator that you tin utilization.
You just driblet in a few details (remainder owed, interest accuse per unit of measurement, monthly payment) as good as off yous go!
Desktop backgrounds
A couple of years ago, we created some desktop backgrounds for our students and I personally still use them. I love regularly seeing quotes or bible verses that inspire me, as well as this is a simple agency to do that. The 2 below are specific to paying off debt, so they are yours to download in addition to usage!
Getting out of debt is not a one-time decision
I wishing getting out of debt, losing weight, as well as exercising were 1-4th dimension decisions, but they are non. They demand to live decided over besides over i time over again.
Every fourth dimension you lot larn tempted to purchase something you don’t demand, or have a potluck at piece of piece of work, or just sense similar sitting on the couch – you lot take hold a determination to do. Are you going to do what you lot should do, or what you lot FEEL similar doing?
You probably know what most people do most of the fourth dimension – what they FEEL similar doing. You are obviously unlike. You wouldn’t yet alive reading this if yous were similar most people.
So, you may have “decided” to get out of debt, but as you go on this journey, inward that location will alive some tough days where you lot experience like quitting.
I know I had enough of them.
The thing that helped me was continuing to dream of my “promised ground.” For me that meant dreaming of:
- Eliminating all the money stress I had
- Having an emergency fund (so I didn’t demand to depend on credit cards)
- Being able to give generously similar I had always wanted
- Being able to locomote all over the U.due south.
- Having fewer money fights with Linda
So figure out what your KEY motivations are for wanting out of debt – your “Promised Land” – as good as focus on that on the tough days.
As someone who has been through it as well has interacted with thousands of other readers who take hold, let me assure yous that past times God’s grace yous tin do this!
Getting out of credit card debt is a bigger deal than you realize
I believe that God put each person down here for a reason and that reason is to bless others. In doing so, we volition live blessed.
I take away concur institute inward my ain life that my most joyful moments oftentimes revolved around me helping or doing something to do goodness some other individual.
Meanwhile, my most painful, sorrowful, as well as hapless moments were taking seat when I was thinking around myself. Often 1 of the quickest remedies to a struggle that we are having is to larn our minds off ourselves as well as larn do something for someone else.
So what does this hold to do with getting out of debt? H5N1 whole lot actually.
Our motivation for wanting to leave of absence of absence of debt should go beyond ourselves.
Sure, it testament live awesome when you lot learn to time out out of the paycheck-to-paycheck wheel too when you tin tin purchase that auto with cash, but that is just ingredient of it.
God wants to exercise yous to financially bless others! This is a existent practiced thing because:
- Giving is i of the most fun too self-fulfilling activities you lot tin tin can be role of.
- You are storing upwards treasure inwards Heaven for eternity, rather than downwardly hither for a few to a greater extent than years (Matthew one-half dozen:20).
- Giving is a smashing agency to burn down selfishness out of your life.
- When you lot give, it testament alive given dorsum to you inwards abundance (Luke half dozen:38)!
You need to have it to give it!
If you are like most Christians I have met, you want to be able to give more. You have a good heart and wish you could give more. You really want to be able to bless people and give more to your church building.
But over again, if yous are similar most that I hold got met, y'all are thinking, “it is hard enough just to pay the bills each calendar month, allow solitary give to others the agency I would like to.”
This is exactly why you lot demand to get out of debt!
Imagine how much easier it would be to give if you didn’t have any credit card payments or car payments, or (dare I even say it) a mortgage payment! This has been my motivation over the terminal few years together with this is where yous inward improver to I are headed!
It is non really our money
One of the biggest financial revelations that I have received is that our money is really not our own. We are merely stewards of what we have been given by God (read the Parable of the Talents for a refresher.)
Even if we insist on saying that we worked hard to earn it, who gave us our encephalon, the hands we used, together with l-l the air we position inwards our lungs?
We came into the world with nothing; we will leave with nothing. It is all God’s (Psalm 89:11). We have the privilege of beingness stewards. When we are slack or wasteful with our money, it is non our money we are wasting, but God’s. It is non only ourselves that we hinder but others as skillful.
Fund the Kingdom instead of paying involvement
What if we took all the money we were paying in interest charges to our credit cards each month and gave it to missionaries as good charities making an touch on?
It would alive the most painless giving because the coin wasn’t l-l coming to our pockets inwards the outset location! It would simply live transferring that money from Visa together with Mastercard to organizations that we WANT to give it to.
Can y'all imagine how many lives would live impacted? Can you lot imagine how many souls would live impacted?
I testament live the kickoff to tell you lot that getting your credit cards paid off feels absolutely liberating together with amazing, but what if we could add together to that the additional motivation to acquire out of debt to do sound the Kingdom of God?
Ultimately, nosotros withdraw maintain a role to play, inward improver to so does God (1 Corinthians three:ix).
But I tin’t help but dream nearly how much to a greater extent effective nosotros could live if nosotros were out of debt?
Psalm 67:vii “God blesses us, that all the ends of the Earth may fear Him.”
The importance of having an open mind
Our greatest battles as Christians are inward our minds.
I withdraw concur constitute that the greatest breakthroughs inward my life came equally a outcome of opening my take away listen to a novel agency of thinking. It requires humility to acknowledge that something you lot maintain e'er done or e'er thought is not necessarily the only agency or that it is l-l correct at all. These mindset changes tin can live really hard, but they are absolutely essential to follow God together with accomplish anything worth accomplishing inward life.
What does this all take hold to do with paying off my debt?
Maybe it testament be easier for y'all, but for me, I had to alter a lot of quondam mindsets that I was belongings onto inwards enjoin to dig out of our debt.
Just a few:
- I decided to give up my hard-earned free time after my 9-hour workday and use that time to start a line organisation to earn extra income.
- I would become out to dinner with friends but didn’t monastic tell anything because we didn’t keep the money inward the budget.
- I had to acquire to make at house, equally our nutrient budget shrank to a tiny amount.
- I had to sell off some items that I really valued.
- I had to select NOT to attention what people thought most me as I drove around in a xiv-twelvemonth-quondam automobile.
Anyway, these were just a few that I had to fight through. Yours might be different. But the thing you have to remember is that it is only temporary!
None of those things listed to a higher seat lasted to a greater extent than 2-three years for me.
And looking back, I would do it ane time more inward a heartbeat if I had to.
Being out of debt has been so much to a greater extent liberating, fulfilling, together with financially beneficial than I ever could have got imagined.
Now it is time for you to take action!
Bookmark this as well as come dorsum to it each calendar month or as needed.
And whatever you do, don’t quit until you lot gain your goal!!!
Quick Favor:
If y'all know anyone else who might live trying to figure out how to get out of debt, I would dear it if you shared this with them.
I poured my ticker out into this monster-article because I want it to assist every flake many people every chip possible. My prayer is that it would get into the hands of whoever would really do goodness from it, so whatever form of sharing with others is greatly appreciated!!
Prayer to get out of debt
I’ll leave of absence you with this prayer.
If you’re in debt and want to get out, spend a moment praying for God’s aid:
God, I know You tin do all things, in addition to that I tin do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I want to go out of debt, but I demand Your assist. Lead me yesteryear Your wisdom equally I laid almost this journey. Help me modification my habits inwards add-on to my mindset. Work through me in improver to others so I tin eliminate all of my debt. Lead me to a spot where I can live inwards a topographic point to give more than than to others.
For Your glory together with inwards Jesus’ Name,
Amen
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