Debt free living consists essentially of two components: minimizing expenses and maximizing income. This may sound simplistic and obvious, but many people really don’t think big picture about these things. It’s much the same as trying to lose weight, you really only have a few tools, but people want to pretend they have other alternatives. When you’re trying to lose weight you need to exercise more and eat less bad food. When you want to get out of debt, you need to bring in more money and spend less.



There are many underutilized methods of doing both of these things. The first is to start analyzing which of your expenses are really necessities. Are you dropping a bunch of money on things that could be removed from your budget? Many people get stuck on this step because they think in terms of the status quo, but obviously changing the status quo is the only way to get out of debt. The status quo hasn’t been working, so it’s time to make some changes.





Cable TV is a great example of this. Many people spend upwards of one hundred dollars on cable every month, never stopping to think about why. They consider it a necessity, but is it really? How much of the time we spend watching TV is really time well spent. This may not be an answer for you, but you really have to consider questioning your idea of what is necessary and what isn’t.



A method for maximizing income that many people forget about is selling things. Obviously you aren’t going to get what you paid for most of your possessions, but that doesn’t mean that taking that bite out of your debt isn’t worth it. Many of us look at our mass of debt and wish we could just hit the \"reset\" button. Selling possessions can be one of the easiest ways to do this. Moreover you don’t even have to pay taxes on what you sell, if it’s less than what you paid.



Ultimately most of us really have to take a big picture approach to getting out of debt. Wishing it away isn’t going to work. For most of us, continuing along the same path isn’t going to work either. It’s time to make some serious changes.