My AA sponsor once told me "If you want to learn something teach it to someone else." Anyhow that is how I became a carpenter. Now I need to reduce my debt load, so let's take a look at ways to reduce a debt.
Many of us have compulsive personalities when it comes to alcohol, drugs, coffee, cigarettes, shopping and eating in restaurants. In an effort to keep up with the Jones's' we may buy cars that are to expensive, houses that are to big, to much life insurance or the wrong kind.
Last week while watching the KCTS channel 9 fund raising special on television. The founders of the "Motley Fool" website brought up a good point. If you eliminate $2.50 a day of wasted money you will save $912.50 a year to either invest or pay off your credit card debt so you can invest.
So lets take a look at credit card debt. In January of 1979 the house I was living in was torched causing the loss of everything I owned. To complicate the matter my wife was in intensive care at the time and our furniture and jewelry were used as collateral for our credit cards and a small loan causing me to file chapter thirteen bankruptcy. During the bankruptcy proceedings I totaled up all the interest that we had paid on credit cards and small loans during the previous year. That amount came to a staggering 30% of our income. The formula looks something like this ---30% interest on debts--20% IRS taxes--8.6% in sales taxes-- that equals 58.6% of our income. This figure does not include property taxes, life and medical insurance, mortgage.