To cap this week’s theme of what to do right away after deciding to get out of debt, I provide some quick tips on how to enlist friends and family in your fight for debt reduction. So far I’ve reviewed some common sense techniques and tips for creating an immediate impact in your life: setting up an instant budget, tips on how to treat critical expenses in anyone’s life, and how to seize control of a disorganized life and quickly put things in order. Even if you follow this advice for the first couple of days, the pressures to fall back into a lifestyle of high spending is a threat.
Much of the struggle to not fall off of the wagon of debt reduction stems from social pressures – friends and family that you spend time with, day in and day out – that encourage you to live beyond your budget. Here are several pointers to turn the people in your life from challenges to sidekicks in your path towards debt elimination.
Make a Debt Pledge
By making a pledge to get out of debt in front of friends and family, you can overcome much of the stress of hiding your financial situation from those in your life. And since a substantial component to spending behavior is derived from social pressures, it is better to turn this around and make your challenge moving forward known to those with whom your share your life.
Avoid Shopping Areas
If your descent into debt stems from a tendency to shop too much, then alert your friends and family that your goal is to stay away from shopping environments. Depending on how your spend your free time, perhaps they can even keep you away from stores in which you habitually whip out the plastic or greenback since a major impediment to eliminating debt are bills that you incur repeatedly.
Actively Host Get-togethers
The social pressures to spend are tremendous. Eliminate the situations in which you feel obligated to spend money by steering your entourage towards your home. Better yet, by providing a space to hang out, have friends and family be responsible for bringing the food and entertainment.
Make a Group Commitment
While making a debt pledge is valuable to get the word out that you’re aggressively going to drive down your existing debt, having others commit to the same pledge makes an even greater impact. If others in your life do not have outstanding debt themselves, then have them pledge to limit their spending to what you are shelling out. Living frugally also entails great financial gains for those who do not struggle with debt.
Enlist Help from Others
Consider having your friends and family take an even more active role in helping you to eliminate debt. Encourage them to suggest guidelines for your spending; let them set up rules to follow in order to avoid tempting situations. They may even provide you with some informal advice on debt reduction that assuages a desire to get credit counseling.
Collaborate on a Plan and Budget
As we’ve advised, getting organized and setting up a plan is paramount to successfully eliminating debt. Along these lines, solicit the advice of friends and family when deciding on what and how much to budget for each need. Not only will they clue you in to a better target amount for each item on your list, but some group brainstorming may generate creative ways of making your lifestyle work without derailing your debt reduction efforts.
A key thought to keep in mind is that for many that struggle with debt, the negatives to visiting a credit counselor can outweigh the upside: while some tips on dealing with debt will be heard, visiting a credit counselor can cause one’s credit score to drop and thus make escaping debt harder to achieve. In short, make sure to weigh all debt reduction options carefully.
Raj Patel writes for DebtGoal.com, a do-it-yourself system for getting out of debt and lowering your interest costs. DebtGoal.com incorporates all of the techniques discussed in this post and can help users understand and get visibility to and manage their debt finances.
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Tags: debt, debt and family, debt and friends, debt and marriage, debt and shopping, debt budget, debt declaration, debt elimination, debt help, Debt Paydown, debt plan, debt pledge, debt reduction, debt strategy
