In some households across America, the sound of the postal carrier is the highlight of the day. Maybe she is bringing birthday cards, penpal letters, catalogs, magazines, Netflix DVDs, or books ordered online. There’s always the chance that today won’t be the day, which makes the anticipation all that more exciting. Here she comes now, on foot or in the mail Jeep. You just can’t wait to see what she has brought–or hasn’t brought!
In too many American households, however, the sound of the postal carrier is accompanied by a feeling of dread. What bad news does she have in her mailbag today? Will she bring more bills, overdraft notices, late notices, and final notices? It’s no small wonder that dogs bark when they hear the mail carrier; dogs sense their owners’ anxieties.
Can You Become Debt-Free?
When you’re buried under a mountain of debt and nearly every day brings lousy news by mail, email, and phone, you might not be very hopeful that you can become debt-free.
But the answer is yes. You can become debt-free. It may not be easy, and it may take some time, but just about anyone can break free of their debt burdens.
Ralph Marston, a former professional football player, said, “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.” Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel prize winner, said, “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” And Karen Lamb, a prize-winning author, said, “A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Think of becoming debt-free as a great adventure, like climbing Mount Everest or sailing across an ocean. Every great adventure takes a mindset of “one step at a time.” To start the adventure of becoming debt-free, you must take small steps.
How Polo Funding Can Help
One of the first steps towards becoming debt-free is to reach out for a lifeline. For many, Polo Funding is that lifeline.
Who are they? Polo Funding is a debt consolidation company. Here’s how they work: Once you start working with a company like this, you get to stop making multiple monthly payments to various credit cards. When you’re paying off credit card debt to the credit card companies directly, you are often merely putting money down to cover a high-interest rate. You probably aren’t making very much of a dent in paying off the actual money that you borrowed. Polo Funding stops all of that. Instead of paying what you’ve been paying to the credit cards, you pay one consolidated payment each month to Polo Funding. You know what your interest rate is, too; it doesn’t jump around all over the place.
Two Ways to Change Your Relationship with Money
The first way to change your relationship with money is to stop dreaming about becoming rich. There are all sorts of books, magazines, movies, podcasts, and seminars on money and finance. Many of them play on the basic human desire to become rich. Stop paying attention to those. Instead, look for information that helps you work with the financial resources that you currently have. Some teachers call this the “abundance mindset.”
As long as you’re always striving for more money, you’ll never be happy. Experience shows us that “just a little bit more” is never enough. Learn about finance in a more beneficial way to your spending habits–that’s the first step to changing your relationship with money.
The second is to begin building an emergency fund. An emergency fund isn’t a vacation fund or retirement fund; it isn’t a “mad money” stash for when you’re feeling down and want to engage in a little old-fashioned retail therapy. Instead, your emergency fund is a cushion to help you take unexpected financial hurdles in stride. These hurdles could be an expensive mechanic’s bill, unexpected medical expenses, or job loss. If you’re not as worried about life’s little emergencies, you’ll feel a lot less stressed out all the time. It doesn’t take much to start building an emergency fund; you could start setting aside $20 a paycheck.