Your Debt Discipline Challenge

You may not often see the words debt and discipline used in the same sentence.  They're more like salt and pepper.  Throw in the word challenge and you have today's story.  If you have no debt or no friends with debt, you are excused.  Today's challenge is to reduce your debt by increasing your discipline.  Ready?  Here's your debt discipline challenge (please share with someone you know who may need this)...

1. Gather all your credit card statements, car loan paperwork, mortgage statements and anything you have reflecting interest you pay.
2. Add up all the interest you're paying every month.
3. Multiply your monthly interest in step 2 x 12 to find your annual interest amount.
4. Decide what age you would like to retire.  Determine how many working years you have remaining by subtracting your current age from your retirement age.
5. Multiply your annual interest in step 3 by the number of working years remaining in step 4 to determine how much money you are paying your creditors until you retire.
6. Post the amount in step 5 on your refrigerator door.  This is the amount of money you are robbing from yourself because you have no debt discipline.  Your challenge is to get out of debt as quickly as possible so you can enjoy a better life in your later years.

If you're still reading, you may be in shock from the dollar amount of your debt.  Don't freak out on me.  You're one of the lucky ones striving to get out of debt and you know what you're dealing with.  You can't realistically eliminate your debt if you don't have a plan.  If you're still with me, you are serious about debt relief.  You are in a race with yourself.  The stakes are high.  Get discipline, develop a plan, stick to the plan and you win the challenge.  Walk away without accepting today's challenge and your creditors will get rich from your lack of debt discipline.  It's your choice.  You make the plan.  If you want a tip, try attacking your smallest balance first and do everything you can to get rid of that balance.  Keep going until you are out of debt.  Have a great day.