Living With One Loan; How To Simplify Your Life

Life is simpler with little or no debt. If you can organise life so that you can have only one loan—your mortgage—you’ll find yourself saving more money and better preparing your kids for college and yourselves for retirement.

Here are some simple guidelines to help you live with just one loan:

1. Stay out of debt as much as possible. It is almost impossible to buy a home where you can raise your kids without borrowing the money. Nothing else, however, is nearly so difficult to purchase without debt. Stick to your guns. Save your cash and buy only what you can afford.

2. Pay for the credit cards. Pay down your credit cards first. Buy a little extra each month on the card with the smallest balance. When it’s paid off, take the space you were paying plus the paid off card’s payment and apply that to the next card. Choosing this pattern, you can accelerate your debt reduction plan
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3. Pay off the car. If you’ve got a car loan now, promise yourself that this will be the final one. When the car is given off, try to make the payments into savings. Never buy a car again with debt, use your car savings account instead.

4. Save on the things you want. Everyone wants more stuff. Everyone wants more stuff now. The difference between those who have money and those who have debts is often simply a matter of timing. Waiting a few months to save up for the thing you want—or even need—will power your spending with earned interest rather that taxing it with interest you pay.

5. Stay in your home. If you choose to stay in your home, after you reach a point where you could buy a bigger, nicer one, you’ll allow yourself more room to be saving each month. This way, you’ll have the cash to be paid for things you want and need—including college for the kids and retirement for you. Ironically, it will be easy to live with one small loan than one big loan.

6. Don’t consolidate. I need to know that some people were hoping to get tips on consolidating debt into one loan, but that strategy is literally too easy. Doing that will rob you of the discipline you are to set up to save your money and will almost certainly fail. One consolidation would be accompanied by the subsequent and eventually, there would simply be too much to consolidate and the weight of it will overwhelm you.

7. Live frugally. If you combine the basic steps above with a pattern of frugal living, you’ll find the cash around you really starting to accrue. We’ve all met rich people we’ve caught buying groceries with coupons, arguing with the checkout person at a few pennies. Have you thought about how they got so rich? You don’t have to be a jerk to be frugal, but for most of us, being frugal is the only way to get plentiful.

You and your family will benefit from a goal to live your entire lives with just one loan. Get to one loan place as soon as you can and you’ll quickly find yourself thinking about becoming a no-load family.