Changing Your Ideas about Debt

Most Americans are in debt. Being in debt is so normal that we don't even really think about "debt" until we are faced with collection, foreclosures, or even bankruptcy.

There are three things that happen to people in massive debt. Some never dig their way out and end up financial disasters. Their kids don't go to college, their dreams never materialize, and they wind up old, broke, and scared. They wonder how they could have worked hard their whole lives and not have the money to fill a drugstore prescription.

The other group does manage to get out of debt. They either get tough or get lucky (or maybe both) but they manage to claw their way back to some level of normalcy. Maybe they just stop spending money altogether or maybe they inherit something or a kindly relative bails them out. Everything seems great. But talk to them a year later. They're back in debt again, sometimes worse than before.

The third group is the rarest group. These are the people who get out of debt (usually not by winning the lottery) and never go back.

The difference between these three groups is not how hard they work or how ambitious they are or how much they want to get out of debt. It isn't about luck or tenacity. The secret is that the third group changed their mind about debt.

If you think about debt and money the way most people think about debt and money, you'll wind up the way most people are -- in debt without any money.

You have to change your ideas.