Getting Out of Debt - My Personal Experience

I've had a credit card since I was seventeen years old. I loved the idea of buying something now and paying for it later. By the time I was approaching twenty years old I had three or four credit cards and the interest on them was ridiculous, and it was getting difficult for me to even make the minimum payments. Something needed to change. I either needed to make more money to suit my lifestyle or I needed to change my lifestyle and stop using my credit cards and cut the amount I was spending.

I had a pretty good job managing a local restaurant, but wasn't really in a position to increase my income...the thrift store to eBay sales just wasn't cutting it. My lifestyle needed to change. I stopped using my credit cards and paid them off, but didn't really change my lifestyle. A few years later I was back in over my head in credit card debt. Then I found Dave Ramsey. He gave me a Total Money Makeover and common sense principles to get out of debt. It has changed my lifestyle.

• I didn't just stop using my credit cards this time, I cancelled them.
• I created a budget and assigned each potential dollar earned a name. In other words, a balanced budget.
• I now deal in cash only. Saved up a baby emergency fund and have started paying off debts smallest to largest. I am still in this step.

Even though I'm not out of debt yet, I wanted to point out that I made drastic changes by cutting things out of my life that were needless, only spent what I made or less than I made (i.e. living within my means), and kept and stayed on a budget. These are some of the common sense principles I'm doing in my life to get out of debt.

Now let's talk about these ding dongs in Congress running our country, whom also control out tax dollars and how it's spent. You would think they use some of these same common sense principles starting with balancing the budget. But when the housing bubble burst and the recession took hold we were told that we had to spend money to make money (Joe Biden) and this administration has continued to spend more money than the tax revenues are brining in...in the trillions of dollars. The debt ceiling (the amount of money our government can borrow) keeps getting raised and we're borrowing more and more money where sooner or later we aren't even going to be able to afford the interest payments on these loans.

Drastic changes need to be made. First and foremost, we need a balanced budget ammendment in our Constitution. This will allow we only spend the amount of the projected income the government receives through tax revenue. Second, needless government programs need to be eliminated or drastically cut. Government employees salay should be capped with the average American household. They also need to contribute more to their health care plans and savings accounts/pensions. Third, like we did in the 20's we need to cut spending drastically in upwards of 50% spending cuts in the budget.

Doing something like this will hurt, but needs to be done. We need to get our country back on track.