Last week at the Beartaria Times Community App, we asked our members about getting out of debt. This sparked many to chime in with their own posts and start conversations in the comments section.
One member started the conversation by explaining how the different members of their household were all holding onto personal debt and not hiding it but not sharing the responsibility. They explained how, when it came to light, they all devised a plan to get each person out of debt together and how they could all make specific changes to get out of debt together.
Some of their recommendations focused on not always getting to eat the food they want but eating what they have or making sacrifices to their grocery list to meet the budget.
“We are eating from our pantry. We are using old emergency food storage. We are even using some of our old emergency food storage grains for our animals. They are loving it. It is working out.”
Another member gave a list of ways they see as the best practices for getting out of debt. Some of these include:
- The main sources of high-interest debt that I’ve seen are student loans, car loans, and credit cards. Make a spreadsheet with your debt balances in one column and the APR in the second column. Make the third column the product of the first two. This will roughly give you the annual cost of each debt. You’ll form your plan of attack based on this.
- It’s beating a dead horse but make a budget. Can be paper, but spreadsheets or other electronic solutions would be much better. Include cash! Log cash transactions as well as electronic so you get a full picture of an average month. Really dive in for at least 2-3 months on this to capture everything. Eliminate what you don’t need.
- Deep dive your grocery bill. Figure out what categories you’re spending the most on. Consider buying those things in bulk from somewhere like Azure Standard. Often you can save quite a bit this way, and even get a better quality product for cheaper! You can make your own bread from their flour for about 1/3 of the store bread cost.
Lastly, another member shared how they could purchase land and build a home without debt. Although they are not entirely debt-free, they believe mortgages to be the most complex debt to get out of but mention that it isn’t impossible. They mention Dave Ramsey, a well-known anti-debt radio host who has helped countless people escape the chains of debt through his effective program that this member notes has detractors, as just about any plan or method in life will.
“…the program is all about living within your means, spending only cash, and only treating yourself when and if you’ve truly earned it. If you’re still in debt, you haven’t earned it.”
We express our gratitude to all who participated in last week’s community discussion. We had some valuable ideas and approaches discussed, and we are excited to see more members achieve the goal of becoming debt-free in 2024!
Read everything our members had to say at app.beartariatimes.com with some users posting under the hashtag #debtfree23.
Join our growing community and get in on the next conversation at app.beartariatimes.com or search Beartaria Times wherever you get your apps.
