Pursuit of Excellence

Almost ten years ago, I didn’t know how I had amassed so much credit card debt. Looking back on it now, I was very much in love with the idea of instant gratification. I wanted to get as many things as possible to celebrate my freedom of youth, to drink, and to basically have fun. And that’s where the problem is. If you find yourself emotionally spending, then your emotions are controlling you, and not the other way around. A person can have an intelligence in storing information, but if he doesn’t have the emotional control and the wisdom of how to apply that information effectively, then the person can fall victim to his feelings.

Looking over the past two years, I can tell you almost exactly how I amassed the same amount of debt vs. back then. The increased debt came as a result of the engagement ring, a new car, helping a family member pay off an existing debt, making an advance to open up a day trade account, purchasing equipment to store excess things I’ve accumulated over the years, and spending on day to day living.  But here’s something I do know; if I really wanted to I can accurately find out where all the money went and how I got here. How do you do that? The answer is simple take a deep breath, and collect all  the credit card statements from the past two years and you’ll see where the debt came from.

Credit card debt can be bad if you’re not willing to stop digging the hole. Credit cards are also great tools to accurately track where the money goes. A good rule of thumb to follow is this rule: If you can’t pay the balance off in less than a month, then pay it off in a year, but if you can’t pay it off in two years, then you may want to consider terming this credit card debt out, by getting a term loan. Here are three peer2peer lending sites that can help you convert your credit card debt into term loans if you have less than perfect credit:

Lending Club

https://www.lendingclub.com/

Prosper

https://www.prosper.com/

Upstart

https://www.upstart.com/

The most important step to a debt free me is asking yourself: How did I get here?