Be Debt Free in 2007!

No, I'm not talking bankruptcy. If there's one key to living as debt free as possible, it's controlling spending instead of allowing spending to control you. Money and how we spend it is as much an emotional decision is a financial one. By working to separate the emotional from a financial, you will be able to take charge of your money and your life.

The first place to start is to understand your financial situation as it stands today. This means that you need to know how much money is going out every month and for what. It's not enough to make a note on the list and say MasterCard $100 payment. What you need is the following information that found every month on every credit statement.

1. Total Amount of Credit Available
2. Total Amount of Credit Used
3. Interest Rate, As an APR
4. Minimum Monthly Payment
5. Grace Payment Period

If possible, put this information in a table format. If you don't have a computer and printer to do personal work, use a piece of graph paper, or even some notebook paper. The point is not to make excuses for getting this job done so that you can take back control of your life. Simply take a clean sheet of paper and make a column for each of the five pieces of information that you need off of each bill. These five pieces of information will become your columns.

Next, you want to put the name of each bill down the left-hand side of the paper. These will be your row names. So you will end up with a list of your bills and all the information needed to begin your work. You can get this form already prepared and ready to print out from the link below.

This information is critical to take the next step in gaining control of your finances. Remember the emotional aspect of money mentioned above? The number one cause of our debt in society is caused by trying to buy happy. Evidence is all around that buying stuff hasn't made any of us happy. A good quote by Mary Ellen Edmunds reads: "We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like."

Keeping up with the Joneses has become a national pastime. What we don't realize is that the person in that large house or driving that expensive SUV could very well be 1 paycheck away from living on the street and getting a "will work for food" sign. So while they may appear to be successful, the reality is that many are financially destitute and a slave to their things.

If you are ready to move past the emotional aspects of your money, the one thing you must do is resolve to never say, "I deserve it" as justification for spending money. A hard-working person such as yourself actually deserves peace of mind and financial security more than a new car or yet another trinket.

When you stop by our website you can find out the next steps in taking back control of your life

Abigail Franks has researched personal finances and being debt free. On this site find information about becoming debt free and how to get a debt consolidation loan and other personal loan options.