Sorry for the interruption in our regular programming, but I forgot to mention a REALLY important thing that you need to do before you begin.

I know that I said we’d begin going through Baby Step #2 in yesterday’s blog, but I made a pretty big omission in the pre-game steps you need to take before tackling your debt. What is it?

If you’re employed, STOP MAKING CONTRIBUTIONS TO YOUR IRA OR 401(k)

WHAT?! Look, I know that sounds insane. Your employer matches your contributions up to a percentage of your income. Most of the time, somewhere around 3-5%. Much like I said yesterday about bringing your savings down to $1,000, THIS IS TEMPORARY. Very temporary in most cases. If you work the Baby Steps in order and without wavering from your path, for most people it’s around 24 months to pay off all of your consumer debt (DEBT NOT INCLUDING YOUR HOME). If you really want to eliminate debt from your life, you NEED to add this to your pre-game list. You need as much ammunition ($$$) to kill your debt as quickly and as effectively as possible.

I did this. It’s kind of painful at first, but once you start seeing your debt balances go down and go away at record speed, you’ll be glad that you did it.

Ok, that’s pretty much it. There’s really nothing else to elaborate on, here. Have you followed through with all of the steps that we’ve talked about during the last 8 blogs? If not, start now! You’ll need to have that all in order before you begin Baby Step #2. We’ll be moving onto that tomorrow. I promise 🙂

 

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