A Simple Way To Get Out of Credit Card Debt
By Carlon Haas | May 22, 2007
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
A while back, I read a book called Generation Debt. Basically, the book goes on about how this is a bad time to be young because so many young people are in debt.
In debt?
Well, I’ll go ahead and “solve” the whole debt problem for the nation’s youth. It will probably be the simplest way to get out of credit card debt that you’ll ever read. Ready?
Don’t charge things on a credit card if you can’t afford to pay cash for it.
Simple, huh? Well, it doesn’t seem so simple for a lot of people. As a marketer, I know first-hand how people delude themselves into believing they “need” things when really they just want it.
But what if you are already in debt?
Have a massive student loan? I sympathize. I really do. I worked full-time when I was in college so that I could minimize my debt. And when I graduated I had $150 to my name, a sizeable student loan, and had a one-way ticket to South Korea in search of a job.
A year later, the debt was gone—and that was in the midst of the Asian Financial Crisis that saw a loss of 60% in the Korean currency against the dollar.
How’d I pay it off?
I did it by doing without. Don’t get me wrong. I went out with friends and had a good time. I even took a trip or two in that year. But the key was I didn’t buy anything. At the end of one year, I owned about as much as I did at the beginning of the year.
It sounds almost too easy, but I see too many people who want everything and want it now. They don’t think before they buy. And they wonder why they’re in debt.
The key is simple. Do not buy what you cannot afford. As I found out that first year I lived in South Korea, there wasn’t much that I really needed. There was no “thing” that could give my life meaning.
There was only me. There was only time. And what I lost in possessions, I gained in time, experience, and even money. And the money I saved by not buying things I didn’t need took me out of debt.
It can do the same for you.
Popularity: 100% [?]
Topics: Debt/Finance | No Comments »
How to Stop Getting Hundreds of Emails a Day in Five Minutes or Less
By Carlon Haas | May 21, 2007
I knew there was a problem when I didn’t check my email for a couple of days. It was taking just way too long. Outlook was open. The computer would respond, not respond, and then respond again.
My computer and I had been together for a long time, and I was afraid I was losing her.
It didn’t look good. Prognosis: a long deep freeze!
But then the most miraculous thing happened.
My computer started moving again. Outlook was picking up its heels, and then it happened.
187 new emails.
187!
In 2 stinking days! And it wasn’t SPAM either (that was a higher number).
My first inclination was to do what I always do…read through all my e-mail. But this time I wasn’t going to do it. I decided to de-clutter my inbox once and for all. I did one thing that took my e-mails down to under 10. And it took me all of five minutes to do it.
Here’s what I did:
I unsubscribed from all the e-newsletters, e-mail updates, and groups/forum updates by e-mail.
The result? I only get important emails. And my productivity has SKYROCKETED.
I can’t believe how much I spent reading a newsletter and then reading another one until I move onto a forum where I start reading posts that link to other posts and to other articles.
This process drained HOURS out of my day. And the information, though useful at times, was nothing earth-shattering.
Just today, since I unsubscribed myself from all these e-mail updates, have written 6 blog posts, edited a newsletter, reconfigured my business website, and finished keyword research I had put off for weeks.
I encourage all of you to try this. I say get off all e-mail lists.
If you just can’t do it, try this:
1. Make a separate folder for all the e-mail updates you get.
2. Keep track of the ones you read
3. If you haven’t read an issue in one week, delete the message and unsubscribe from the list.
Give it a go. Freeing up your time is the way to live a fuller existence. Possessing less e-mail is one way to do that.
Popularity: 60% [?]
Topics: Eliminating Clutter | No Comments »