So you’ve heard the term, action creates traction. Well when you are trying to get out of debt, you need all the traction you can get.
Traction as it relates to paying off debt is simply throwing as much money towards what you owe. In my case, I’m trying to pay off my mortgage so I’m paying as much as I can towards the principal of my home.
Everything dollar counts!
In order to pay off any debt that you may have, you must adopt a this-for-that mentality. I’ve done this throughout my marriage and it’s helped us continue to pay cash for purchases. The idea is simple: sell something that you don’t need anymore and use the money to purchase something that you do need. See most people will simply go out and buy what they need and they miss out on the satisfaction on having money before they make the purchase. Not only that but having money from selling something makes you feel like you’re not paying full price, even though you are.
An example of getting traction is taking your lunch to work for one week. If you typically pay $10 for a good lunch on a normal day, then you save roughly $50 by taking your lunch and eating that instead. So at the end of the week, you would log into your bank account, and pay $50 towards a credit card or in my case, my mortgage principal. You can do this daily with small amounts. Remember, those small amounts add up and best of all, it’s an action that creates traction.
The psychology behind this is real. If you tell yourself that you’ll pay more towards your debt when you have a certain amount of money or you only like to pay increments of $100 for example, then you’ll never do it. You’re more likely to pay off debt when you do it a little at a time versus the minimum payments that are required.