Your finances impact the quality of your life. When you have bad debt, you have higher stress levels and a lower quality of life. However, if you change the debt element in this chain reaction, you can change the quality of your life.
Bad Debt
Financing products are like any product of convenience, they are great when used in moderation, but once you start to rely too heavily upon them, they become an addiction. Being addicted to debt leads to an imbalance in your financial position. This imbalance forces you to either work harder to compensate for the added weight of debt on your financial portfolio, or you will topple over. The toppling effect can hit you all at once, or it can creep up on you as interest rates, higher monthly payments and penalty fees add up.
Bad Stress
The more debt you accumulate the more stress you are likely to experience. This stress permeates from having to spend more of your take home pay on debt and less on other costs of living. This stress is also produced by fears that you will not be able to pay your monthly bills, as well as by the harassment by bill collectors.
Bad Life?
As debt and stress levels increase, the quality of your life decreases. Your mood will deteriorate, your health will be impaired and you will be less able to find any form of enjoyment that provides you with relief from your bad debt depression. If you do not do something about your debt now, you may not be able to dig yourself out.
Breaking the “Bad” Chain
Solving a bad debt problem is not easy and it is not usually quick. However, it is achievable if you put in the effort. The first thing that you need to do is to figure out how bad your debt is. Gather all of your bills, monthly statements and income statements. Create a list of income, expenses, overall debt and overall assets.
Next figure out what assets you can sell to help pay off your debts. For example, you may have ATVs, a camper, a boat, an extra vehicle, stocks, bonds, etc. If the item is not necessary it is fair game. While it may be difficult to get rid of these items, just think about how much better your life is going to be when your debt is under control.
Now you will want to talk to your credit card companies and other holders of your debt products. See if they will lower their interest rate or if they will settle for a smaller payoff amount. You will be surprised at how willing financers are to work with you to pay off your debt.
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By following the above financial tips you will be able to slowly enhance the quality of your life by getting out of debt.
