When it comes to working yourself out of debt, you not only have to look at a change in your lifestyle, you might need to change your attitude about money. For so many of us, money has been telling us where it wants to go. When you start to tell your money where to go, you start to evaluate what is important in your life. It may require a change in your attitude about not only money, but priorities.
I use to think that I needed to have “things” to be happy. The more I had the happier it would make me. That of course meant more debt and more spending. Once we started our debt free program, I realized that I couldn’t buy those things anymore. For me, that was a change in my way of thinking. I had to change the way I viewed life and what it was that made me truly happy.
As we worked our way out of debt, we actually sold many of these items we had accumulated over the years. We used the proceeds to pay down our debts. The funny thing is, the more we sold and the more we eliminated our debt, the happier I became! This held true for my husband too. I think that deep down we both knew that happiness did not come from the stuff we had, bu rather the people we had in our lives. It came from within. It was like a release for us – to let go of the items we pretended made us happy, which allowed the real to shine on through.
Now that we are out of debt, we haven’t changed our way of thinking. We don’t just buy stuff to have it here. We buy what we need My kids know this as well. We are making sure to teach them from a young age where real happiness comes from. It comes from your heart, not a new pair of shoes (although at their ages, they aren’t 100% convinced this is true). We are not rich financially, but rich in love and that is the greatest gift we are teaching our children.
(I am not a financial advisor and the information listed within these Debt Challenge posts is not to be construed a financial advice. Financial concerns/issues should be addressed with a professional in order to receive advice and assistance.)