Debt can easily ruin our ability to tech-define our own lives. However, debt can be useful if we employ it correctly. The key is to make sure that our debts never rise faster than our incomes and that they are only taken on to increase our ability to produce. ANY OTHER WAY and our debts will eventually crush us.
Debts are a heavy burden. Throw them off, and you walk free.
(#CommissionsEarned)
– Paolo Bacigalupi, American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer, Works Include: The Windup Girl and The Water Knife
Debt is a non-starter. It will cripple us before we even begin. However, it is not a death sentence. There are workarounds. For without the possibility of freeing yourself from its grasp, your options will be forever limited.
“Debt is the slavery of the free.”
— Publilius Syrus, Syrian of Roman Italy, Who Earned his Freedom by His Writings, Works Include: Publilia gens
When my bankruptcy closed, I was terrified. I had child support bearing down on me and they don’t offer forgiveness for that. When I started my payments, the system was taking nearly 40% of my income after taxes! Falling behind meant going to jail, so that was not an option.
In affording child support, I survived on less than $20/week in groceries! That’s food, toiletries, etc. Forget about seeing my kids on a regular schedule halfway across the country. I was fighting for my freedom, literally!
Starting out I had to immediately redefine how I approached money. I could not allow myself to fall back into the debt traps that had become so commonplace in my marriage.
Thinking that I was comfortable working paycheck to paycheck, existing in a dead-end marriage, and essentially living for my kids, would work no more. If it ever really did.
So, I read/listened to all the financial know-how books. And, believe me, there are a lot, I mean a lot, of great ones out there. I highly recommend Jim Cramer’s Books, anything on or about Warren Buffett, and Benjamin Graham’s Intelligent Investor; the list goes on and on (#CommissionsEarned).
They were a great inspiration and provided incredible insight. But something was missing. They would talk about building wealth and doing so with great methodologies. However, many would gloss over the debt problem.
It’s not that there aren’t good resources out there on debt, it’s just that when you are suffering under it the last thing you want to do is read about it. It is depressing! And more importantly, it simply leaves us feeling more lost than ever.
In the end, once again, it’s simply up to us to take action. I needed to get going by telling myself that I simply wasn’t going to throw money away anymore. I needed to avoid the money traps of comfort I’d fallen into during my marriage and look for ways to intelligently manage my money. Dave Ramsey had provided a good foundation to start from.
Zero-based budgeting would be my guidepost, but it wouldn’t do it alone. I had to actively work toward discovering life without debt. This is not at all easy, for debt opportunities are everywhere. I still struggle with it to this day, and if we have committed relationships, it’s even more difficult.
The apparent “savings” in fast food, all the magazine subscriptions, anything that didn’t add real value had to go. Debt traps lurk around every corner. I looked into all the typical types of debt too.
Payday loans, expanded credit, and store credit even to buy a bed (all I had before was a couch). All things that seem to offer help, yet they only exist to enslave us further into a system, that only wants us jacked in and subservient. Smashing our individuality by being droned into working the forty-hour workweek for forty to fifty years and watching our pensions stolen from us in the end anyway.
Photo by Zulmaury Saavedra on Unsplash
Payday loans, expanded credit, and store credit even to buy a bed (all I had before was a couch). All things that seem to offer help, yet they only exist to enslave us further into a system, that only wants us jacked in and subservient. Smashing our individuality by being droned into working the forty-hour workweek for forty to fifty years and watching our pensions stolen from us in the end anyway.
This is cyberpunk in today’s world. Even Mr. Robot recognized the deep connection between debt and the loss of the individual (#CommissionsEarned). Seeing those parallels again?
I merely sought out and eliminated as many money pits as I could. Because, unfortunately, there is no Elliot Alderson to help do it for us.
I still fall into one every now and again though, I’ll be honest. But every day, I actively seek out opportunities to destroy old debts and live without new ones. Living without debt creates a sense of freedom. An opportunity really, to travel down whichever road I choose for myself.
Photo by Matteo Modica on Unsplash
In doing so, I have discovered many tips along the way that help to evade debt. I know it’ll look different for each of us, what to cut out that is, and how to do try to live in a society that puts the image of a glamorous life before us with few opportunities to afford it all. Leaving debt as the only proposed answer.
I’m no expert on it, but I know that if each one of us just looks around our lives we can all find a way to be a little leaner and a little more focused. We simply need to cut out the money pits. We don’t need them and in the long run, they only keep us tied to the system. They keep us from being who we want to be.
So, having ruled out any possibility that debt could be a good thing we have to ask ourselves, is there a way debt can be a good thing? There is no doubt, that just as technology drives growth, so comes along with its debt. For large companies, giant amounts of debt are often taken on for research and development costs.
For individuals like us, however, debt is often used as a tool to fulfill a material desire; not the ability to produce. However, we can learn from these tech companies as good ones only use debt to become more productive.
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
In fact, it’s my ultimate rule in establishing what things I take out debt on these days. Very rarely do I ever buy the “cool stuff” I used to covet. Now, I let my ability to produce more be my main guide; I filter my buying choices through it.
If it doesn’t help me make more of what I find valuable (i.e. the things that increase my wealth, health, or play in ways that help turn me into the me I want to be), I don’t buy it. And most certainly, I don’t go into debt for it.
In the final analysis, there is a multitude of sites dedicated to helping us get out of debt. Or get into it as the case may be.
Getting out really isn’t the point though if we can say that good debt exists if it helps us make more. Staying out of debt then is the point, and debt can be used to ensure that that happens when it increases our hustle and our productivity.
In order to stay out of debt and continue to develop ourselves, we need to find tools that are readily available, low to no cost (i.e. improve our situation with no debt added) and can affect our lives in a multitude of ways. One of the best things about focusing on technology is that there is so much free stuff out there to help us put it to work in our lives.
There are free courses on everything from using FinTech (Financial Technology) to learning how to code and writing your own scripts to help you research investments. With regard to Wealth, we need to establish a knowledge base so that we can prepare ourselves to profit, and to go into debt if it produces a profit. We are not alone on that journey either as there are free tech-based tools for that too…
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