Viewer Suggestion to Destroy Debts: Trade in Your Truck

The following email came in over the weekend. It shows that there are a lot of Americans who are getting serious about destroying their debts! (The book mentioned below is Life or Debt 2010, available at bookstores and libraries everywhere.)

Stacy,
I wrote you briefly a couple weeks back regarding the success I have had with my debt since reading your book (Life or Debt). Ever since reading the book I have found myself taking control over my debt situation working diligently to overcome high interest charges and unneeded monthly bills. I am even now finding paying my debts fun as I enjoy the challenge of working every angle possible to squash my debt every single month.

While following your debt destroyer program [Editor’s note: This refers to a program to set aside money monthly to target debts] I have been monitoring the growth of my destroyer and always looking for additional ways to add to it. Obviously with every paid off debt my destroyer continues to grow but I’ve been looking for some fast action growth! After some further thought put into our situation I found if I were to make a change to one of our leased vehicles it would be the quickest, easiest and most dramatic change I could see to our debt. After reading the section in your book about vehicles and vehicle purchasing it reminded me of the amount of money we lost just buying new and made me need to make a change!

Long story short I sold my 2008 truck eliminating that amount and bought an older yet nicer vehicle that was over $5,000 less then than amount I owed on my 2008. Doing so combined with a better interest rate also dramatically lowered my minimum payments by $200 which has just raised my debt destroyer that amount!

Thanks again for sharing the knowledge via your book!
Best Regards,
Brad

While posting this email may seem self-serving, I thought it was important to offset some of the negative notes I get saying “I’ve done everything I can – there’s nothing left that we can do to find the money in our budget to pay off debt.”

For most people – at least those with income – there’s nearly always something you can do to find extra money to destroy debt.

Paying interest means handing money to a lender that you should be keeping for yourself. Pay off your debts as quickly as you can. And stick around for more ideas on how to find the extra money to do it!