Money Mastery: Smart Financial Strategies Tailored for Women in 2024
The unfortunate reality is that many women find themselves at a financial disadvantage as compared to men. We typically make less money, take time off work to care for children, …
Financial Advice, Uncategorized
From retirees to new college graduates, debt management is probably the number one financial literacy challenge today. While there are forms of good debt, many financial troubles are in some ways tied to bad debt. Kids don’t think about it at all, and many parents report debt management as being a long term challenge. In a culture of immediate gratification and where living beyond your means has become easy, it is important to understand that there are ways to avoid bad debt.
Most of the advice you see on the subject of debt is how to get out of it, rather than how to avoid it and minimize it in the first place. Think about it like gaining weight, where most of us need to avoid accumulating it, rather than look for some magic solution to getting rid of it. As with weight loss, it is easy to fall pretty to solutions that are untested, unrealistic, or simply don’t work.
Thus the simplest strategy for managing bad debt is to avoid it where possible. The first step is learning that all debt is not the same, and all financial instruments like credit cards and home mortgages, have both positive and negative attributes. Here are some key debt principles that will help you survive the financial challenges of today:
Contrary to what you read in the papers, or hear from your neighbors, it is possible to avoid bad debt by managing your resources wisely. If you do incur debt, such as a reasonable amount in order to purchase a modest home or complete your education, work to repay it as quickly as possible and free yourself from that long-term burden and risk.
By successfully managing debt, you will better prepare yourself to take on additional financial literacy complexities, and you might find yourself really enjoying life and your family for a long time to come.
To your success!
Sharon
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