It's been asked...
Why do I want to get out of debt so badly? Why don't you just finance a car? Get a credit card? Join the rest of the human race and follow the system?
Simply, the system is flawed. Going into debt, borrowing money to buy a car, financing furniture, even borrowing to buy a house with zero percent down, is setting yourself up for failure. The system only works for you when everything in your life works right. You never lose your job, you never have to move, you never have an accident, you never get sued, you never - you never - you never.
If I've ever learned one thing in this life, it is that when you need things to go "right" the most, they won't. Why bank (no pun intended) your entire life on a system that will most likely bankrupt you if everything goes bad? Doesn't it make more sense to set up your financial life on a system that is designed to save your butt when, not if, things go wrong?
Despite the claims, you do not need a high credit score to get a good mortgage rate. For that matter, if you are broke, you don't need to buy a house in the first place. A house will become a curse if you are broke. Back in the old days, before the credit score existed, people would sit down and do math. Figuring your income and your current expenses, they could decide if you qualified for a loan to buy a house and if you could TRULY afford the house you want to buy. There are people that still handle mortgages that way. Find one.
Buying houses aside, if you want to look at things from a Biblical standpoint, which I often try to do, not once does God bless someone through debt. In fact, a number of times, debt and borrowing is mentioned in a negative light.
Even before I got on to this Dave Ramsey guy's plan, I always had this notion that if I couldn't afford to buy something with cash, the last thing I needed to do was go into debt, ie. use a credit card, and try to find a way to pay for it later. Someone told me that sort of thinking was "common sense". *shrug* I dunno, it just made sense to me.
On another, emotional side of things - going through and busting my way out of the debt I've accumulated gives me a sense of control over my finances. I am, for the first time, telling my money what to do and where to go instead of wondering every month where my money went. I actually have a plan and, best of all, it's working! Not to mention, I am accomplishing something great and there's a small amount of humble pride in that.
Oh and one last thing, the average person in America keeps a car loan throughout their lifetime. By the time they pay one car off, they "need" to trade it in for a newer one. The average car payment today is $464. Invest that and you'll end up with $5.8 MILLION!!! Hope you like the stinkin' car! ;)
So yeah, that's why I'm getting out of debt and refusing to play with snakes. No matter how careful you are, you will get bitten. Credit card companies are in the market to make money... not to 'help' us.
Simply, the system is flawed. Going into debt, borrowing money to buy a car, financing furniture, even borrowing to buy a house with zero percent down, is setting yourself up for failure. The system only works for you when everything in your life works right. You never lose your job, you never have to move, you never have an accident, you never get sued, you never - you never - you never.
If I've ever learned one thing in this life, it is that when you need things to go "right" the most, they won't. Why bank (no pun intended) your entire life on a system that will most likely bankrupt you if everything goes bad? Doesn't it make more sense to set up your financial life on a system that is designed to save your butt when, not if, things go wrong?
Despite the claims, you do not need a high credit score to get a good mortgage rate. For that matter, if you are broke, you don't need to buy a house in the first place. A house will become a curse if you are broke. Back in the old days, before the credit score existed, people would sit down and do math. Figuring your income and your current expenses, they could decide if you qualified for a loan to buy a house and if you could TRULY afford the house you want to buy. There are people that still handle mortgages that way. Find one.
Buying houses aside, if you want to look at things from a Biblical standpoint, which I often try to do, not once does God bless someone through debt. In fact, a number of times, debt and borrowing is mentioned in a negative light.
Even before I got on to this Dave Ramsey guy's plan, I always had this notion that if I couldn't afford to buy something with cash, the last thing I needed to do was go into debt, ie. use a credit card, and try to find a way to pay for it later. Someone told me that sort of thinking was "common sense". *shrug* I dunno, it just made sense to me.
On another, emotional side of things - going through and busting my way out of the debt I've accumulated gives me a sense of control over my finances. I am, for the first time, telling my money what to do and where to go instead of wondering every month where my money went. I actually have a plan and, best of all, it's working! Not to mention, I am accomplishing something great and there's a small amount of humble pride in that.
Oh and one last thing, the average person in America keeps a car loan throughout their lifetime. By the time they pay one car off, they "need" to trade it in for a newer one. The average car payment today is $464. Invest that and you'll end up with $5.8 MILLION!!! Hope you like the stinkin' car! ;)
So yeah, that's why I'm getting out of debt and refusing to play with snakes. No matter how careful you are, you will get bitten. Credit card companies are in the market to make money... not to 'help' us.