#83 – Pay Off Debt

Changing focus from relationships to finances for these next 10 challenges. Yes…the dreaded F word…. At least that was what I used to think. Money was this thing we didn’t talk about and honestly it’s still hard to talk about. Once you have the mindset that you control your money and not your money controlling you it does get easier. In order to do that you have to intentionally choose where you spend your money. You need to stop mindlessly spending without realizing it. But first let’s focus on the D word…debt.

Easy challenge: Don’t spend any money for one day. Instead of spending the money, write down how much you saved for the day. For example, morning coffee ($5), lunch ($15), soft drink and snack at break ($5), dinner at restaurant ($30). That’s $55 you would have spent when you could have planned ahead and made coffee at home. Packed leftovers for lunch. Then made dinner at home with the food you already have.

Medium Challenge: now that you actually realize how much you would spend. Cut back on this spending and reallocate it to your debt.

Hard Challenge: Pick one debt and an amount you want to pay off by the end of the month. I’m a Dave Ramsey fan so my advice is to pick the lowest debt amount. This way you can see progress and knock them out. Using what you learned in easy/medium challenges, make the plan on how to get that amount and do it.