Unfortunately, the society that we live in works to a larger or smaller extent on borrowing money. Governments borrow money, the companies borrow money, and we borrow money. It is this normalization of debt attitude that can create trouble for people. But being in debt now doesn’t mean that you always have to be. There are things that you can do to improve your situation. Read on to find what.

Cut up those credit cards

The first thing you need to do if you are looking to get rid of your debt is to get rid of those credit cards. Even if they have a 0% credit rate at the moment, they are still bad news. Wondering why? Well, it is because it gets you used to be in the habit of paying for things when you don’t necessarily have the money to.

This is a bad idea because it changes the way you assess whether to buy things or not. Using a credit card means that you no longer ask yourself do you need the item, and have you got the money saved? It’s much easier to just say I want it and I’ll worry about the cost later. Then combine that with the fact that most credit cards charge you a lot of money for buying things with them, its is easy to get into trouble financially.

OK, so having a credit card isn’t a bad idea for true emergencies like when the washing machine breaks down, so you may not want to cut them up. Instead how about freeing them inside a block of ice in the freezer? This works so well because they will still be functional but it takes the time to thaw them out. This gives you an inbuilt ‘cooling off’ period where you can take the time to evaluate whether you really need to make that purchase, or whether it’s more of an impulse buy.

Remove credit card info from online stores

Talking of credit cards, another great way of getting out of debt is to remove your credit and debit cards numbered from online stores. Having all your data preloaded just makes it too easy to pop online and pick up a few items without thinking about the impact that your purchases are going to have. A few poorly timed transactions can have a massive effect on your debt situation as a whole. Remember, It’s a good rule of thumb to live by, that if it’s too much hassle to put your details in to make the purchase, you probably don’t want it that much anyway.

Debt consolidation

Another clever way of getting your debts under control is to use a debt consolidation service like Lending Tree. They pay your debts for you, and you pay them a single monthly amount.

This means you can have more money for you every month, you don’t need to worry about companies chasing yours for payment or late fees. So it makes the whole paying off process much less stressful.