You know, having been in the business of financial planning for almost 26 years, I've talked to a lot of people done a lot of financial planning and counseling, and talked about their situations. And there's people that come into my office, they sit down, they there, you can tell that they're unhappy about their financial situation, you can tell that they have, they kind of lost their hope. And they start talking about their debt problem. And I hear the same thing kind of over and over. It's a good there's a consistent message that I've got way too much debt. I'll never get out of debt.

I'll never retire and it's hopeless. And what I have learned through the years is that is the reason that I wrote my book deceptive money, which is the guide to getting out of debt the right way. And it took me three years to write this book. The reason I wrote it is because I don't think that the debt is the problem. I think it comes down to understanding how to get out of debt. Do you see this theme Coming throughout all the teaching courses, it always comes back to that lack of financial education.

And I blame the system for it. You know, we go through all these years of school and some go to college. And they don't focus on the one the more important aspects of life, which is how to deal with money. And so there is the, also, I think the toxic combination when it comes to debt have kind of ignoring the problem, not really wanting to deal with it, not really wanting to understand how to deal with it. So I always talk I always think that when someone walks into my office number one, they've built up a lot of courage to be there. And number two, they've had it and it's usually when I get them to come into my office when they're at the bottom.

I'd rather than come in when they're not at the bottom because it gives us a little bit more options. But what I want to talk to you about today is the one way that you can get yourself out of debt, quicker than you could have ever imagined. And when I've shown people this They have absolutely been amazed at how it let me let me explain something. It's the math how the math works. And I'm going to teach you the math. This is not something I've come up with.

This is not something I've developed, it's been around for a long time. It's called a lot of different names. We're just going to focus on the math and creating your own debt consolidation plan. And I think that once you understand and learn how this works, you'll feel feel a lot better about your prospects of getting out of debt the right way. Number one, you got a choice, the way that I look at it. Now that you know this, there's a possibility.

You can choose to pay out your debt over time, and then making your fears somewhat of a truth that it's gonna take longer than you could ever imagine to get out of debt. Or you can consolidate that debt and do it much quicker. And basically what I want to do with this, this particular train, teach courses I want to teach you the concepts. This in I'm gonna stay very basic, but I think that you'll get it. And even though and I want to keep into my I want to keep in mind that everybody's wired for numbers, you know, it's funny because I have a couple who's the clients of mine. And the wife is very analytical, very numbers driven.

The husband is a graphics artist and is not numbers driven by any stretch. In fact, if you start showing a bunch of numbers, he just kind of glazes over. And so she would always say to me, show me the numbers and draw pictures for my husband. So I realized that maybe you're not numbers oriented, but just stick with me. This is very easy concept. And we'll start out with this the first two key components of developing your own consolidation plan number one, you got to commit to what you're paying monthly until you're completely out of debt.

So what I mean by that is that if you're Paying $1,000 a month to eliminate debt, you've got to commit to that thousand dollars a month, until the point that all the debts gone. So in other words, if those four debts, you're paying 250, a debt, which four times 250 ends up being $1,000. And let's say you pay one of those debts off, you're not going to turn that thousand dollars into 750 now and go spend that 250 simply cells, you're going to continue to pay the thousand dollars, because what you're going to do with that 250 is you're going to take it and add it to the payment of the next highest interest rate. Very simple concept, two key components. It's committing to the payment. And here's the thing you're already used to paying the payment, right.

So call this once again, a season of my life, that I'm going to commit to this payment no matter what and once I'm done, then we got some cool options on the other side of that, and then you're going to pay the highest you're always focusing on What the highest interest rate is that you have, and paying that off with the extra money. Now, there's two ways to go about this To be fair, and there's some immediate people in the media to say no, you don't pay the highest interest rate. First, you pay the lowest balance. Because psychologically, if you can, if you if you pay off the lowest balance first, then you feel like you've done something, you're welcome to shift this whole idea to pay the lowest balance off first. The problem is, it's gonna take you longer to get out of debt, because focusing on the highest interest rate debt means focusing on the highest cost of debt, and you want to get that paid down as quickly as possible.

And that is the magic of the math. So there is two schools of thought, but I think that it's most important to focus on the highest interest rate debt first. So the advantages to doing this, number one, there are no fees. You're doing your own consolidation plan, and let me Talk about and I and I go through this another another teaching teaching course though, let me talk about the Debt Solutions business that claim to create a consolidation plan. They want to focus you in on Okay, we're going to bring all this down to one payment. And that's, that's what's going to get you out of debt.

They don't tell you all the other horrors that go along with getting you there, but they don't but they focus you in on the one payment. Now, here's the thing about the one payment. A true consolidation plan outside of what we're doing here is a is one where you go to a bank or credit union or a a lender, and they say, okay, we're going to pay off all your debts. And we're gonna, you're gonna make one monthly payment for X number of years and here's gonna be your set interest rate. That is not what debt consolidation companies are doing. Okay, just I just kind of want to point that out.

There's no fees. Number two, you are in control. I had someone called me just a couple of weeks ago, that I've been working with a little bit counseling with them. Because he's in a one of these debt consolidation programs he wants out because he's got some other options now to pay off the debt. And he said to me, you know, if and I was showing him how to do that, and he was saying, this feels great if I can get to this point, that I'm completely back into control or feel better about things, because you lose control number. The third advantage is that you commit to a season, and it's not the rest of your life.

It's a short period of time, that you're going to be in this self imposed consolidation plan, and you will get out of debt faster than then you think. As you pay down debt, your options increase. As you pay down debt, your options increase. And what that means is that your credit score starts going up. Your debt starts going down. Then all of a sudden you get those letters now credit cards, companies find you attractive.

They say, Hey, why don't you transfer over your higher interest rate debt to our 18 month no interest program. And I would take advantage of those all day long, because it's all about bringing the cost of interest and you'll just get out of debt quicker. And you're you're just playing the game with insurance with the credit card companies whom they expect you to fail. So they make more money, but then that's not gonna be the case, in this particular situation. So as you pay that debt down, more options create are created, which gives you the opportunity to get out of debt quicker, and then treat your payment as an asset. Here's the cool thing about being on the other side.

You make these payments as $1,000 a month, you make these payments over time. You get to the point at five years, you're completely debt free. Now you're used to paying $1,000 a month now take that thousand dollars, figure out what your highest goal is. your highest value is to start applying that thousand dollars towards that maybe it's college for the kids. Maybe retirement, maybe as some additional savings and emergency fund money, whatever it is, you're used to paying that thousand dollars, you've not missed it. And now you can create an advantage by that.

Now here's what I want to go through a very basic and easy, very basic and easy. case example, have to excuse me to put my glasses on to read make sure I'm seeing the same thing that you're saying. And it shows a person with four debts, American Express Capital One, Capital One and chase and you can see the balances. You can see the rate of interest wants a 10 all the way up to 25%. And you're making $100 payment a month for four months. So for debts and you can see the balances of it.

And that's roughly 13 $14,000 at various rates of interest. And you now and you're making $100 a payment. Now keep in mind is that for most people, there Maybe their debt situation a little more complicated than this, the numbers aren't so rounded off and the interest rates are not so rounded off. But this will give you an idea of how this works. Now what you're looking at right here is the four different accounts that credit card accounts and you're making that payments until you get to the 12th month now what Now locate that there on the chart, the 12th month, and you're at Capital One. Now Capital One, instead of having $100 payment has $78 and two cent payment, you make that payment, you take the difference between the hundred and 78.02 for that particular month and you go Hey, I've got $21 and 98 cents, I'm going to commit to keeping the entire payment intact.

Now let's add that to the highest interest rate credit card, which is the chase card. So your hundred dollars turns into 121 98 and you can see that under the category called snowball. They often call this the snowball method of getting out of debt. So you're going to pay 2198 in the 12th month towards the chase account. And then in month 13, that 2198 you're going to start paying $100 extra. So now your hundred dollars goes to 200 in month 13.

And because you're taking the Capital One payment, and you're you're pulling it over to the chase payment, and now you're gonna start working on the chase payment because that's the higher interest rate. I hope that that makes sense. Once again, you're just switching where the payments going once the debts off. So you're, you're done with Capital One, which is a great thing. Now you're at trying to figure out how to eliminate the chase account. Fortunately, you get down to month 34 and the chase account is eliminated.

And now you've got $200 extra a month 35 to go to the Capital One So now your hundred dollars turns to 300 and you can see and number 34 to 34 a month that you added a little bit to that Capital One because you only had 105 58 to pay, which is not 200 so the difference between the two or 9442 So yeah, that's your Capital One. Remember we're committing to paying $400 so it's got to go someplace. And then in month 35, you switch to $300 towards your capital one payment, you pay at the pay that all the way down to look at your American Express is still at $100 because it's the lowest interest rate. Debt, you get to month 44 and you pay $300 now 40 a month 45 you're paying $15 and 28 cents to pay that debt off. The difference between that and 300 you add to the American Express card and month 45.

And then now all $400 starting in month 46 is going towards the American Express In baked that $400 payment up until month 51 or you pay 220 805. And you're debt free 51 months. You're debt free, folks, this there's no magic to this. It's easy math. It's just about reorganizing your debt. Now I want to point out something 51 debts a 51 a month, excuse me, based on high interest rate debt, and you still did it.

And it's 51 months is a reasonable amount of time it goes by fast. And now you have $400 of your discretionary money that you can take or your have two, excuse me money that you can take and apply towards another goal. If you would have done the original plan, just continue to pay off the debt 74 months. So wouldn't you want to get out of debt in 51 months versus 74 months? You know, creating your own debt consolidation plan is a great way to get out of debt quicker As I said the beginning, you know, it's not about the debt, the debts not the problem, the debt is result of decisions that you made. Now, to be fair, sometimes that debt is because of necessities like medical bills you couldn't afford, didn't have the money for whatever it could be, or your chart, you lost your job, or it could be debt because you continue to live with them without side of your means and ignoring the reality of your situation.

But the bottom line is debt, that debt it is what it is, it's there, it's done. It's your reality. What you have control over is what the solution is to the debts not the problem. The problem is is that people don't know how to get out of debt the right way. Creating your own consolidation plan is a way to get out of debt a lot quicker than you'd ever imagine.