Tire Traction
Maybe it’s because i’m a man that I whenever I hear the word traction, I think of tires. I know that the word is mostly associated with tires in that if you are on the road, your tires help you have traction so you can move forward on the pavement.
The number one question that is the hardest to answer after leading a seminar or workshop about getting out debt is this, “How do I pay down debt when I don’t have extra money to pay against the debt?” This is a great logical question that millions of people in the United States and beyond are dealing with. But I must tell you that the question is always asked with much defeat as if every option has been explored.
I tell people about a secret weapon called traction. Just like tires, we need traction to help us move forward in life and with paying the people that we owe money to. When you find yourself in debt, the first thing you need to do is to stop taking out loans and cut off the credit card spending.
The second step you need to take is to look for items that you can sell that will help you gain traction. Think of your success of getting out of debt like a vehicle, you need a push to help you get started and when you sell stuff that you’ve had around the house, you are giving yourself a push. Take the money that you make and throw it at your debt. Attack your debt like it’s the enemy so that it starts to retreat and you start to get some victory in your life. I remember selling 15 different Houston Astros jerseys that I had on eBay. Some were nice throwback jerseys and I got rid of them and used the money to pay down my debts.
The traction was great, I started to see progress and I was moving forward. I was working full-time and I was teaching youth at a local church and that brought in some extra income. I was doing odd jobs and still selling merchandise on eBay. Little by little I was paying off my debt. I used to send my wife (girlfriend at the time) emails with a magic number that was the total I owed banks. Every month that number would get smaller and smaller until I emailed her and told her that the following month I was going to be debt free. One of the best emails I had ever written. I’ll share a section of the emails in the next post.