Happier Without Debt
or
The Real Reason Debt Hurts You

You know you will be happier without debt, but do you even know why?

There are a variety of sources talking about debt

  • TV talking heads
  • Personal finance books, blogs and articles
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Co-workers
  • Even casual acquaintances

The normal financial advice says you will be happier without debt is becaus excessive debt lowers your credit score. A low credit score means you pay an exorbitant interest rate for the debts you have if you can even get credit.

The more debt the more massive are the interest payments and payment itself.

A large debt relative to your income means that it will decades to pay off or make it impossible to pay off.  You will either need to go bankrupt or be chased by creditors for years.

You are a slave to the debt holders.

Those are big problems, but they aren't the biggest problem

The biggest debt problem is that the debt keeps you living in the past instead of enjoying the present and planning on an even better future.

You are stuck paying for the past instead of living in the now.

You cannot enjoy the present or visualize a great future.

Debt ruins your present and your future.

It also ruins your memories of the past because you feel irresponsible  and stupid for getting into your present mess. 

Your debt makes you unhappy by keeping you a slave to the past, locking up your present with constant stress and worry and sabotaging your future.

You Will Be Happier Without Debt Because You can only be happy when you are living in the present, today, right now

When you are paying for the past in the form of debts, old payments, overdue payments, deferred maintenance and important expenditures, you keep going over and over the past.

It is always there.

Months go by and years go by and you are still making payments for things you bought years ago and you keep postponing important and necessary things you need to do.

You cannot be happy now when you are spending most of your time dealing with these old debts.

It Isn't All Your Fault

This misery is not just your lack of knowledge and poor choices.  Some of it is forced on you by others. Your spouse or significant other may have been into keeping up with the Jones.  You may have student loan debt for a career path that provides little in the way of income.  You may have had some health issues with poor or non-existent health insurance.

It does not matter so much why you are living this way.  It only matters that you are.  You are forced to keep reliving these mistakes.

Until you get past all of all this, your life is not your own.

I kept seeing this play our in my life over and over again.

I have gone bankrupt...twice.   The house my ex-wife was in was foreclosed. I have had significant amounts of debt vaporized by the courts. 

But there are still payments to things that happened in the past that I have to deal with. Every time I play around with numbers, thinking what I would do with a large sum of money, I think about paying off these old debts first and taking care of all the deferred maintenance that I have let go for years.


Happier Without Debt Because You Don't Have to Postpone Important Things

Your happiness hinges on your ability to do what is needed in the present. 

My excessive debt forced me to

  • Wait for over 4 years to have my son's wisdom teeth removed.  All that time his teeth and health were getting worse. 
  • Wait years to have enough money to make dental appointments for me and my 2 kids.
  • Never fix the air conditioning, passenger mirror and 2 rear windows on my Jeep. 
  • Never get my son's firs car in for maintenance.


Happier Without Debt - Even other peoples debts affect you

My wife and eventual ex-wife did not help my debt situation.


I paid the energy bill on the house my ex-wife was in that was foreclosed. The utility company threatened to shut off the power on the place I was in at the time if I did not pay off that old bill. They have me by the you know what.


Happier Without Debt- Because you cannot get the things you need now.  Look at the things I really want that I had to postpone.

  •     Buying the shoes and clothes I need to look good and feel good.
  •     Stocking up my house with supplies.
  •     Buying a few of the things I have wanted for a long time.
  •     Buying new clothes and shoes for the kids.
  •     Buying a new bed for me.
  •     Renting a larger place for me and the kids.


These were all things that I really wanted and needed for a long time. These desires gnawed at me constantly. Now that I have these things, the relief is incredible.

But I still need to work on this debt problem every month.  It is just such a burden to have old problems and past frustrations in my life now.  I just want them gone. I want to think of other new things I want, not continually think of the old things that I have had hanging around so long.

I am grateful for where I am at now. I have fixed and corrected and paid off many old bills and have been making progress in many areas.  I have been steadily working toward the life I desire.  But my past problems are like a giant hand on my shoulder holding me back.  I want to run free but the giant hand of the past will not allow it.

Life Can Be Great Without Debt

  • If you need something, you buy it, with cash.
  • If you get a bill in the mail or on-line, you just pay it immediately.
  • If your car needs to be repaired, you get it repaired.
  • If your car has some years on it or miles on it, you buy a new one.
  • If your home needs something new or fixed or repaired or remodeled, you do that.

You don't need to wait for years to accumulate the money or apply for a loan, you just pay for whatever you need or want.

Happier Without Debt Because of Less Stress

Don't you see how this type of living is a more relaxed, stress-free type of living. Can you see how a person with more means and resources can live a far more gracious lifestyle?

You don't have to believe the lies that say if you have more money, or a bigger income, you will just have more headaches. This is just a lie to keep you in your place by others. Others think your place is living in meager circumstances living paycheck to paycheck in near misery.

You don't want that. You want to get past this day to day living where you are still paying for the past. You want to pay into the future. When you get a big check from whatever source, you don't want to pay off an old bill, you want to go out and do something fantastic or buy something new. The way a wealthy person lives.

You don't want to keep bothering about these old bills.

The Real Reason You Will Be Happier Without Debt

That is why debt makes you unhappy.  Not the interest rate, not the money you would make if you invested that money wisely.  Debt makes you unhappy because it affects your mindset now and clouds your future plans.

Instead of every time you receive money you start thinking of new things to buy or new experiences to have or how much farther into the future you can pay things to increase your freedom, you have to juggle this money around to try to pay old bills or try to take care of something you wanted to take care of a long time ago.

Debt makes you unhappy because it hurts your mind, more than your finances. It spoils how you think about money. Debt makes you unhappy because it wears down your ability to enjoy life now.

Happier Without Debt - Less Clutter

Keeping track of all your debts, juggling the payments, trying to time the payments and filing the records away takes an enormous amount of time.

Plus it takes up a lot of space.

happier without debtDebt makes you keep your file cabinet stuffed with old papers and records

You will be happier without debt as you pay off old debts and do not incur new ones, the time involved goes down and the space needed to store it goes away.

If you keep at this persistently enough, continually evaluating each purchase for your long term happiness and deal with each debt with enough tenaciousness, you will get out of debt.

You will have only a few minor bills each month that you can easily pay.  As you need larger items, you will wait patiently until you can purchase them with cash.

The amount of time required to deal with bills will dwindle to just a few minutes each month that you almost look forward to.

It will happen.

How To Deal With your Debts

The easiest way is to not get into debt in the first place and make staying out of debt your life long priority.

Easier said than done but there is key thing you could do to make being and staying debt free a reality.

Avoid Paying For Other People

The simplest way to avoid debt is to avoid getting tangled up paying for other people.  Wives, girlfriends, children, deadbeat family and friends have a way of sucking the money out of you.

It is your money and your life, you can switch to a better way.

It takes a lot of effort and money to leave a reckless spending spouse who does not contribute to the family budget.

But if you don't leave you will never have any money and never be happier without debt.

From James Altucher

Don't Pay Your Credit Card Debt

James cuts through all the nonsense and gives you some solid advice that you can use.

I did not know that not paying the credit card bills was an option before I went bankrupt twice.

But now you do and you can be happier without debt.

› › Happier Without Debt

The only way I could become the happier man I am today was by leaving my wife.  You might be in the same situation I was in.  I suggest you take a look at my book - Leave Your Wife & Become a Happier Man with the 3 Step System.

Click to go to learn more about the book

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