Tips like these helped us pay off $127K in debt. You can read our story in Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After.
Here’s my little Happy New Year gift to you. Each day in January, I’ll bring you a simple, concrete and easy to put in place tip to fuel your efforts to Save Money, Pay Off Debt, and Be Awesome this year. Looking for a quick plan? Well this might not to be the right place for you. Most things down well take time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t begin to implement systems in your life that will help you achieve your goals. I’ve said it many, many times before. Paying off debt isn’t complex. It’s just not easy. You have to punch the clock daily and do the hard work. Here’s another way to make that happen.
Day 3: Sell, Baby Sell
How did we end up with so much stuff? We’ve only been married fifteen years but I find these words have tumbled out of my mouth each and every year. It’s easy to be victims of our stuff. We pile laundry on the treadmill. An abundance of plasticware falls out of the cabinet on your head when you open it (is that just me?!). We wade through papers and toys, crayons and clothes. Stuff, stuff, stuff.
Truthful moment: We all have way more than we need.
Typically, there are three ways to get out of debt. You can
- Spend less than you make and use the extra to pay off debt.
- Sell your stuff and put what you make toward debt.
- Pick up an extra job and use that money to kick debt in the teeth.
You’ll have the most success if you do all of the above. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a yacht or an RV that would have easily picked off $20K of our $127K in debt. My guess is that you don’t, either. But we did have some smaller things that we weren’t using that began to give us a small bit of headway. My guess is that you do, too.
I LOVE books. Big books, small books. Books that make me cry. Books that inspire me. Books filled with history and literature and art and faith. However, as we began to pay off debt, I realized that I wasn’t going to read most of those books ever again. So I began looking at each title with the litmus test of 1) Will I read it again? 2) Will I want to loan it to someone else? If the answer was no to both of the above, I put the books up for sale on Half.com. Oooh and I have money saving tips on how to most effectively sell books and save on postage but that’s another post for another day.
Maybe you don’t have books. Maybe it’s a collection of things. Maybe it’s an extra vehicle. Maybe it’s that treadmill piled with laundry (I call dibs!). Maybe it’s a couch. This weekend is the perfect weekend to go around the house, snapping photos and putting your items up for sale. Whether you use Craigslist, the newspaper, or simply your Facebook feed (check out the numerous marketplaces and groups focusing on selling home goods).
Be reasonable
No one wants to pay more for your old stuff than they would for new stuff. Seriously, you’re awesome but not that cool.
Use the money toward paying off debt
Once you sell something, it is oh-so-tempting to use the cash to purchase more stuff. Remember, that’s how we got in this over-stuffed mess to begin with. Don’t let it sit in your checking account because it will grow legs and walk to Target. Instead, as quickly as you can, move those transacted sales right on out the door and toward your debt. No excuses, no whining.
If you can’t sell it, give it away
I know, I know this seems counterintuitive if you’re trying to pay off debt. However, even if you can’t turn a profit on stuff you’re not using you need to get rid of it. You can donate it somewhere. Be sure to get a receipt for your taxes for next year. Or you can give it to someone in need who you know (Seriously, I’d love to have your treadmill). Extra stuff slows down your daily productivity and will keep you from slaying your own debt dragon. When you have more stuff, you have more to clean, more to tend to, and more in your way.
Kick debt in the teeth this weekend by selling your stuff and removing obstacles from your path. You’ll feel lighter and have more cash to leverage at your debt.
Want to be sure you don’t miss a single one of the 31 Ways to Kick Debt in the Teeth? Be sure to subscribe to my daily newsletter! Look for the bar that looks like this in the upper righthand corner.
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I’m so looking forward to sharing this month of challenge and inspiration with you. Together, we can show debt who’s boss and give it a swift kick in the teeth this January and throughout the year in 2016. Away we go!
Miss the previous posts? Check out:
My book is now available: Slaying the Debt Dragon: How One Family Conquered Their Money Monster and Found an Inspired Happily Ever After. You can also check out Inspiration to Pay Off Debt: 30 Days of Encouragement from the Queen of Free
This post contains an affiliate link. That means when you get a great deal or maybe even something for free, you also help our family pay off our mortgage early. And for that, we royally thank you!
