I’ve been reading a lot lately on the internet about how to get out of debt. One site I do really like is ZenHabits.net. This is a real person, with six kids, who is making major changes in his financial and emotional life.

But other sites I read are very disconcerting to me. They handle getting out of debt like a recipe:
First you stop debting, stir with ample amounts of confusion and frustration.
Add an emergency fund, set aside, let it grow mold because you’re never told how to use it.
Cut up your credit cards…no, don’t, just don’t use them…no just keep one and freeze it…
Wait for 3 to 5 years until everything is paid off…..
….wait…we’re not done yet…..come back…come back!

Oh my.

My big concerns here are two-fold. One, you’re dealing with people who have built their lives around spending. Just like an alcoholic, their routine, their habits are all tied to this addictive behavior. So, for us folks who struggle managing our money, just saying to us “don’t do that anymore” is like telling Superman not to fly. Superman has to fly unless Jimmy or Lois are going to get killed if he flies…. He has to have a monumental REASON to give up flying.

In the Debt Dance system we start with the reason and go from there.

The second area of concern that I have is one I can relate to personally and in the lives of family and friends. I have a family member who was in so deep he was using one credit card to pay the other ones, the next month he would use another card to pay the others, until he hit the wall at over $50K in credit card debt. He went bankrupt. It has only been a couple of years and guess what? He is in debt again…

My family has had similar experiences. We took out home equity lines of credit, ran them up, credit cards sky high, so we re-financed. Wow. How great. Everything paid off.

But, we had a pocket full of shiny, $0 balance cards. The process started again until, once again, we were over our heads. The re-fi people dangled 3 months with no payments in front of us and we took the bait.

I think we have done this at least 3 times…I’ve lost count. The sickening thing for me is that if we had not done this our house payment would now be $500 instead of $1650, and we would be about 6 years away from paying it off. Hind sight, huh?

So, my fear is, in these recipe approaches, that the basic problems have not been addressed. And even if people hang in there for all those years they’ll see those $0 balances.

“Free money, free money, just a little won’t hurt, you can pay it off next month, you can control it now…” will echo in their dreams.

And the spending monkey is so slow and insidious that we don’t recognize it as a danger… “We sure could use a storm door…we’d save a lot on heating if we bought one…oh, look, they’re on sale…” Charging $100 becomes charging $200, $500, on and on.

I believe in educating ourselves about money, spending, finances, and building wealth. And everything we read–even if we don’t buy into it 100%–is beneficial to some degree.

I just encourage you to focus on your priorities and you will see miraculous changes in your life.

NOW HERE’S ONE OF MY FAVORITE FUNNIES:

It’s wise to remember how easily email can be misused,
sometimes unintentionally, with serious consequences.

Consider the case of the Illinois man who left the
snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida.

His wife was on a business trip and was
planning to meet him there the next day. When he
reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick email.

Unfortunately, when typing her address, he missed one
letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher’s
wife whose husband had passed away
only the day before.

When the grieving widow checked her email, she took one look
at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a dead
faint.

At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw
this note on the screen:

“Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything
prepared for your arrival tomorrow.

P.S. Sure is hot down here.”

FACE YOUR DREAMS, EMBRACE YOUR LOVES