This is a Monday morning truth bomb to some people reading this that are like everyone else. This article will tell you why your debt is the problem. 

You buy things on finance. You use your overdraft. You put things on a credit card. You are normal. Maybe you thought you could afford the monthly repayments, or that you were going to pay off the credit within the month. Maybe you didn’t have a choice – with little or no emergency fund and an urgent expense leaves you with no option. Or maybe you didn’t actually think anything about the use of debt at all.

You are normal.

You have never been taught the bigger issues around finance – just that it can be a way of helping you get things before you can afford them. Well, this blog post scratches the surface, and the goal of the blog post is to set off a fire in just some of you to say “Never again” to debt.

Debt means that you owe someone something. Not just in the form of the total figure, but in the form of the monthly payments. So not only do you have the total figure bearing down on you, you also have the monthly payment, which means a monthly burden of needing to find some money, for someone.

This leads on to the next concept.

Debt steals from your income. Once you have taken your outgoings from your income, you are left with your “Excess”. Your Excess is your tool to build stability, wealth and path to financial wellness. The more debt you have, therefore the more monthly payments you have, the smaller your Excess will be.

Consider this. The money required to pay those monthly payments means you need a certain level of income. This means any movement in income, whether it be reduced hours, furlough, maternity leave or even redundancy can cause immense pressure on a household with high outgoings due to debt or finance arrangements. It also means you can become trapped in jobs to support a lifestyle. The fewer payments you have, the less stress about income instability.

Having debt means that you are putting everyone else before you and your household. You are paying banks, car finance companies, credit companies, store card companies ALL before paying yourself. Imagine a scenario where you take all your monthly payments (including your mortgage) and pay yourself that number every month?

Now it may not be as easy as just switching off debt. You may have mountains of debt, little income during a crisis, health issues – the list of genuine obstacles is long. But that’s okay, because you’re not alone. You are part of the Financielle community, where we will support you every step of the way. You can be part of the #debtfreecommunity on Instagram where you will find never-ending support of complete strangers who are working to remove debt from their lives. And if you need proper structure, a detailed plan of the why and the how, we’ve sold hundreds of The Financielle Playbook which is a step by step guide to ditching debt, building strong financial foundations and becoming financially well.

Ultimately, having any level of debt impacts your ability to be financially well. So there is one thing you can do today to improve your health and wealth, it is saying “Goodbye” to debt.