Achieving Debt Proof Living

Debt proof living is the way to live if you seriously desire the ability to retire early.

When you finally decide to leave your regular income source for the "good life", debt is the last thing you need to be saddled with.

At first, you may think this is an impossible task.

However, it's simply a mindset... decide you want to live a debt free life and then begin working on the strategies that help you get there.

The first step to being completely debt free is taking it seriously and making financial success your ultimate goal. All around you are messages in the media and the influence of friends and family to keep piling on more and more debt.

Decide right now that you will refuse to listen to those who don't care about the ramifications that come with having a high debt load. No one will be there to help you when your debt becomes so unbearable that your dreams are dashed away as your money disappears in endless monthly payments.

There's absolutely no way for you to avoid spending more than you make until you sit down and put together a written budget.

It's amazing how you can identify areas where you're overspending and areas where cutbacks can be made once you see it all down on paper. Once you decide to truly analyze your budget, you're on your way to financial abundance and, ultimately, an early retirement.

You've got to live within your means. It's that simple. Yet, it's something too few people actually have success in achieving.

After putting together your budget plan, see whether you make enough income to where you can consistently end up positive at the end of each month. If not, you've got some serious decisions to make.

These decisions involve taking an honest look at whether you can cut back in enough areas to get you into a positive financial position. If you find, that you simply can't do this, then the next step is to find a way to increase your income. This fits in line with the only way you're going to retire early anyway, so you should already be focusing on building your mini-businesses, investing in real estate, etc.

After you've worked hard to become debt free, it's now time to cut up those credit cards. No moaning about it... just do it.

If you don't take this step and you pay off all your credit cards, there's a very high chance that you'll be back in debt soon. Think about it, if you have $20,000, $30,000, $50,000 in available credit like many people do, how soon until you start using it again on "stuff"? If you don't have it available, you can't use it!

Because many modern purchases do require credit cards (concert or plane tickets come to mind), you do want to keep 2 or 3 small balance cards for these purposes. Make sure each card only has a limit of about $1000-$2500 or so. When you do need to use them, you must stay disciplined with your efforts to pay off each balance as soon as the bill comes in the mail.

Pay attention to these debt proof living tips, utilize them, and watch your debt load begin to shrink as you get closer to that early retirement you crave.