Why There’s No Point Getting Stressed About Your Debt
Posted on September 21st, 2010 in Budgeting, Debt Assistance | No Comments »
Well hey there and welcome to Debt Assistance Guru! If you're new here, why not keep up to date with all the latest articles by subscribing to my RSS feed. Go on - you know you want to ;-)
If you’re in debt then it’s entirely possible that the situation is causing you considerable stress and worry. Maybe it’s even making your life a misery – especially if you have got behind on your payments and are finding that your creditors are trying to chase you by phone and mail for money you simply don’t have.
If this is the case then it’s important to understand that to a degree we control how we react to the world around us. Certain situations cause us to be happy, sad, relaxed or stressed. And we have some control over which these are. We can choose to be happy even when things go wrong with a little practise.
The fact is that if you’re in quite a bit of debt (enough to stress you out) then it is going to take you some time to get the situation under control and then pay off that debt so you’re free of such a burden. For many people the process will take some years of effort in order to finally become debt free.
Do you want to feel stressed for the next few years? Because if you’re not careful that is what can happen.
I know: it happened to me once upon a time.
I had a nasty split with an ex-girlfriend of mine which really took the wind out of my sails. Not only was I left renting a property I couldn’t afford on my own but I also was so depressed I stopped paying a lot of bills. The more phone calls and letters I got, the worse I felt until I just didn’t want to be at home any more. I just wanted it all to go away so I could start again. That went on for months.
Eventually I realized that these creditors won’t going to go away. That I would have to pay back the money I owed and that it was going to take some careful negotiation with my creditors followed by a period of very careful money-management to balance all my debt repayments and get myself back on track.
But as it was going to take some time I realized there was no point in getting stressed about the situation; about making myself ill and depressed as a result.
I realized that once I had negotiated payments I could afford with my creditors, it was then only a matter of time until I was debt free. I just had to keep going to work, and sending off those checks, and sooner or later I would be debt free.
Even better, as I managed to pay off one debt after another I was able to roll even more money into repaying those existing debts and so I paid them off faster and faster each month.
If you’re stressed about the amount of debt you have right now it’s important that you take stock of your situation. Negotiate debt repayments that you can afford, set up with your bank so that these repayments are made every month on payday so you know your payments have gone out and then try to get on with enjoying life.
Sure, you won’t be feeling too flush with cash for a while as your debts get paid off but you also don’t have anything much to worry about any more. Your debt payments have become automatic so you don’t need to put any thouhght into them and instead you can start to enjoy life.
We all have a choice, so choose not to get stressed.
