I visit a lot of personal finance forums and I also read a lot of desperate questions about how to get out of debts. Many of them are stress, desperate and afraid to confront with their debts. Some of them even fall into the deep debt that make them feel like life is meaningless and suffer. I can tell you that this is quite a dangerous state of mind.

I understand the stress of debts and I always want to help those in debt to solve the problems. So today I decided to share my personal experience and steps that I am using to help my parent getting out of debts. So far my parent and I tried the steps and found that they are working fine with us. So I wish to share it over here and without further ado, here are the steps:

1. Feel the Pain and stop acquiring more debts. Being in debt is stress and pain, especially if your income is not enough to cover both debt and living expenses. So spend your money wisely and stop buying things that not really needed. People usually spend money on something that is not important. Stop using credit card and use cash for daily transaction. This will prevent you from getting more new debt.
   
2. Start a budget. I believe budget, a plan on spending money, is a must for every one of us. It simply helps us to control our spending habits and spend properly according to the plan. Of course, your self-discipline is important here.
   
3. Pay the debt First! I help my father opened an online account for his checking account and from there I will use part of the money to pay debts over the internet before we cash out for our living expenses. So what we are doing is pay our debt first.
   
4. Using the Debt Snowball method. This is a famous method to pay off your debt. The theory is simple. All you have to do is pay minimum payment for all the debts except the lowest interest rate one. That’s mean you are concentrating on the lowest interest rate first. Theoretically, you can pay off your lowest interest rate debt very fast and this will give you a sense of accomplishment and motivation that will keep you moving forwards.
   
5. Outsource your problem. In my case, I’m acting like a third party who helps my father to handle his money. I’m less emotional than my father in money and I can help him to manage his money wisely. You can do this too. If you found that you are emotional and cannot handle your money properly, then you must find someone that you trust to help you on this.
   
6. Pay attention on those balance transfer offers. I always look for a better deal and offer to balance transfer the debts to a lower rate account. This will help me to save up some money by transferring my balance to the lower interest rate account.
   
7. Stop the fear and confront with the debt. One of the main problems I found is people tends to avoid talking and taking care of their debts. They simply avoid it. Yes it is stress to handle your money especially when you are in debt. However, no one can help you except you want to help yourself. You only can free from the stress by confronting with it. I believe short term pain is better than long term pain. So why not confront with your debt now, fight with it, settle it and have a more relax and brighter day in future.
   
8. Never stop learning. There are a lot of information, strategies and stories about getting out of debt available in the internet. So spend some time and read around, you will find some good deals, better plan and better know-how on how to get out of debt.
   

In conclusion, Prevent is better than solution. We must learn how to manage our money and prevent us from falling into the debt. If you are unlucky and have some debts now, then you must have a plan and pay off your debt as soon as possible. The most important is start now and stop procrastination. You do this mainly for a brighter future and I don’t think there are any reasons to procrastinate this.

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