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To: chasio649
Pray. Make a budget. Sit down with your wife and make a financial plan.

Pray some more. Go over the budget again. Find stuff you're wasting money on and quit spending on it. Push that money to paying extra on the credit card.

Pray some more. Go over the budget again. Quit paying for many entertainment subscription services. Quit eating out. Put the extra you're saving to paying extra on the credit card.

Pray even more. Go over the budget again like you're in love with it. Look up investing calculators only to see how much money your wealth will grow into if you invest X dollars per month and get a 10% growth (I average between 11 and 12%). Let the knowledge of that motivate you to pay off your debt sooner by going over all your expenses again to see if there's anything else to cut back on your spending.

Pray more. Train yourself so that spending has the emotional equivalent of eating broken glass. Think about how bad you want compounding returns of investments to make you money as much as the compounding interest of your credit card loses your money. Think about how much your wife would desire you more if you give her financial security. Look at that budget again and see if there's anything you can cut back on. Look at the past few months of spending on either your credit card or bank account and ask yourself if what you bought was worth it. Did buying those things change your life for the better like the advertisements said they would? Of course not. They never do. Vow to yourself to never fall for that bull crap again.

Pray again. Look at the budget again. Don't even think about debt consolidation or bankruptcy. This is a behavior change that needs to happen. Somehow magically wiping the slate clean keeps you from learning how to quit blowing money. Look at the online wealth building calculators again and ask yourself how bad you want to get to the point where your debts are paid off and you're using your budget to invest the excess so your wealth can grow.

Pray again. Look at the budget again. Talk to your wife. Commit to each other that the next time either of you is tempted to waste money eating out you'll instead save money and consume each other in bed. Ask each other at what age you want to retire and how bad you're willing to pay the price now so you can meet that goal. Lookup the online investing calculators again. Commit to not wasting any more money.

Pray again. After you've used your budget to pay off a significant portion of your credit card, start a Roth IRA for you and one for your wife. The minimum is $1,000 each. Put one into an all-cap growth fund and one into a small-cap value fund. Watch the value each month. Think about how much it grows. It's no longer just hypothetical returns in online calculators. It's real money. Ask yourself how much you wish you had invested more. Realize that the only thing stopping you from going all in on investing is that blankety-blank credit card debt that causes you to hate life more than LSU fans hate Nick Saban. Hate that credit card so much that you'd wipe your butt with it if you could flush it down the toilet.

Pray again. Look at the budget again like someone committed to make a real difference, not just grumble about the credit card balance. Find the last thing your wasting money on and quit.

Until you get to that point, I question how bad you really want to get rid of the credit card debt.

73 posted on 09/10/2021 2:26:46 PM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Tell It Right

You may want to consider the Turing Test on the OP before recommending prayer. :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test


80 posted on 09/10/2021 3:08:09 PM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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