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If you had a bucket with a hole in it, would you try to fix it by cutting out the hole?

Of course not.

But that’s exactly what many people who are in debt try to do: Borrow their way out of debt.

I know, because I was one of them.

It seems like a good idea at the time. You look at your credit card bill, and see that the vast majority of your monthly payment is going to interest, and you get frustrated. You feel like you’ll never get ahead. If only they didn’t charge so much interest, you think. From there it’s only a small step to thinking about paying LESS interest. What if I could get this money switched over to a no interest card? I could pay it off so much faster…

So you apply for a balance transfer, and bam, now have yet another credit card that you owe money to. This time it’s one that will hit you with an even higher interest rate if you don’t follow the instructions exactly right. And it’s only a matter of time before “something comes up” and you “need” to use the original credit card. (Because you can’t use the zero-interest card for new charges.) Pretty soon you have two credit cards that are near their limits. The cycle just continues, and you get more and more frustrated.

Next you think, “If only I could get rid of these credit cards, I could pay off my debt so much faster.” So you look into consolidation loans, and the cycle continues.

We never stop to think that the problem isn’t the evil credit card company, or the fee-crazy bank, or the auto dealer who wore us down, or the mortgage broker that didn’t explain things clearly. The problem is us. The only way to fix the hole in the bucket is to PLUG IT.

You have to change your habits. Even if your credit card charges you 33% interest, if you’ve stopped USING it, eventually you WILL get it paid off. You have to think about things differently. Ask yourself, “If the only thing in my situation I could change was MYSELF, what would I do differently?” Listen to the answers to that question, and you’ll find your way out of debt. For good.

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