It’s been a pretty amazing last 9 days and an awesome awesome start to February which for most is the worst time of year because of the “January Blue’s”. It’s the time when all the bills from Christmas come in and people just have no idea where to start on how to pay off all these bills. This year for us we took coaching and mentorship and because of that there are no blue’s in the Guthrie household this January!
So in the last week and a half since I mentioned that we paid off $22,000 (actually $26,500 when I include both the MasterCard and Visa) people all over have been asking us how we did it? How did you pay off that kind of debt in such a short time? I tell them it was the help of some amazing coaches by listening to what they had to say, reading some suggested books, streamlining our life and lastly making smarter decisions. Before all of that however it started with association and getting around like minded people who want similar things in life. As I’ve said before you are a product of books you read and the people you associate with. I took that to heart and with that paid off $26,500 in under three months. Am I different then you? Nope. I have two arms, two legs and put my pants on the same way you do. Now I know your wanting to know “well that’s nice Shaun, but how exactly did you do it”, well I’ll tell you.
- First and foremost if you want to get out of debt you need to talk to someone who has, and not just someone who said “Oh yeah I paid off some debt”. Well what does that mean? Did you pay off a few hundred dollars? A few thousand? Go find someone who will actually tell you how much debt they had so it’s tangible to you, so you can say to yourself if they can pay of $x amount then I can too. So we did just that and sat down with an amazing woman, Christine Shewchuk who shared her insight and coached us in making some suggestions on smarter decisions with our money. Now notice how I said “suggestions”, with World Wide Dreambuilders one of our cardinal rules is “Don’t mess with any one’s money” and Christine made sure she was giving us suggestions. Ultimately it’s our decision on what we do with it and we were sick and tired of doing the same thing going round and round not making any headway.
- Second we were recommended to read “The Richest Man in Babylon”. I won’t go into much detail about the highlights of it that we took out of it was if you want to get out of debt, streamline your life to live off 70% of your income. The other 30% should go to debt/savings. So we split it up into 20% towards debt and 10% to savings. With this we setup a budget and have actually stuck to it. It’s amazing when you really want to acomplish something and you make changes necessary to achieve that.
- Lastly we took a good hard look at what investments we had and compared them to all our debt to see just how much we were “making” in our investments. Turns the majority of are actually LOSING money in our investments compared to our debt. Think about it, do your investments return you 19.5% each month? Do they even make you 19.5% in one year? Some might but most won’t. And when you compare $22,000 on our Visa at 19.5% interest to some of our investments we were loosing money and not even getting ahead. So with some advise we took some of our investments out and put them towards the debt. It just made sense. To be honest I would have NEVER thought to do that because we are all taught that we need to put that money away to invest and not touch it until we retire. If we didn’t do this we’d still be swimming trying to pay off our credit card with little payments sometimes just over minimum and not really affecting the principal. A vicious cycle that would have taken a LONG time to end.
As you can see it wasn’t anything hard. We first got around some amazing people that helped us break the mental block of just ignoring debt and paying the minimum or just being careless with debt and not taking it serious. We then did the three steps above and really committed our-self to these things. What did we get in return? $26,000 less debt that’s what! We are not done either, so don’t get me wrong we are not debt free, however we will be close to it by the end of this year (aside from the mortgage) and that day will be a HUGE celebration for sure!
Part of our goal is to impact people and I think this is a good way to start. We’ve impacted more people then we realize so we’ve been told as our message has been forwarded out by the likes of Brad Duncan, Leslie Wolgamont and others. With that we’ve partially achieved our goal and we will continue to be leaders and teach other people the things we’ve done to be successful. We are in the business of duplication and we only want the best for people.
So can you do what we did?
Start being real about your debt, take ownership and do something about it!
As we got out of debt, nothing we did was “revolutionary” (to use rocket’s intended word). But IMO, the difference, the power, is being around others who support such an idea, more than the power being the idea itself.
To use the hackneyed example of getting in to shape physically: More people are successful hitting their fitness goals if they are in some sort of support/accountability group, than if they try to go at it alone.
Until we met the peeps in WWDB (not saying they are the only ones, or even saying that every single person in WWDB is on the same page) our belief that there was no such thing as “good debt” was radically different than all the people we knew.
And so in that environment (outside WWDB), where it was not only acceptable, but highly encouraged to “leverage” ourselves financially, it’s hard to change, just like it would for someone looking to improve their physical (and mental) well-being, and hanging around those eating crap food, and leading a sedentary lifestyle.
All that to say, there is plenty of information out there—books, TV shows, news articles, Internet sites, etc.—to help us radically improve many areas of our lives. But IMO, all this information isn’t going to help the “average Joe” unless it’s connected to support/encouragement, accountability, and guidance through a community of people sharing similar goals.
Thanks Bridgett, that really summed it up perfectly.
Just to clarify, the travel and motivation comment wasn’t a jab, it’s a reality of your business. A reality that your upline makes a great deal of profit from. Amway has stated that some “leaders” make more money from their motivational business than from the movement of Amway products. So it wasn’t a jab. I was simply cautioning you on not going down the same path again under the guise of it being an investment in yourself. Now that your credit is fee, you may be encouraged to attend everything and fast track your way to diamond with every possible tool available. It’s a common tactic used by people as credible as Robert Kiyosaki. I can provide you with a link if you like.
The title of your post is “How We Paid Off $26,500 In Under 3 Months”
Based on that, I was expecting to read about how you came up with an EXTRA 26 g’s to pay that off. Just the way I interpreted it, that’s all. Not accusing you of lying, just telling you that *I* thought it was a little disingenuous, that’s all.
I enjoy following your blog, and you sound like a righteous dude, so please don’t misinterpret my comments as insults. They are simply what i wish i had been told when I was at the stage you’re at when I was in Amway. They’re not meant to discourage you, rather, to provoke thought with a different perspective.
I hope you are able to discern it as such.
Have a great weekend!
Thanks Rocket. I see where you are coming from and I can tell you we’ve not been told to use our personal money at all for those type of things. Our business is profitable enough already that we pay for the “tools” and “functions” strictly from our business account. We’ve been able to build our business to the point it’s fully self funded and is now making profits. I’ll be honest it’s not a lot of profit up front but in the long run it will turn out that way. The important thing we were told right from the beginning was to make a business that is self funded. Build it right from the start and I think maybe that type of expectation isn’t set out in other LOS’s and that’s unfortunate because that’s what gets the bad wrap. We are fortunate we have such a great LOS (Line of Sponsorship, for those that don’t know what that means) one that is open and honest right from the start before we were even launched. They told us exactly what to expect, what costs, etc.. and since we’ve been in this business we’ve not had one surprise which is comforting. Not every LOS looks that way, but this is how ours is and what we will duplicate because I believe in open honest upfront communication.
Thanks for the comments Rocket, enjoy your weekend as well!
I see what you did. This is not exactly information that should come across as a major revelation. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but watching a couple episodes of “‘Til Debt Do Us Part” would give you the same information.
You took long term money and applied it short term to minimize the interest hit you were taking. That’s wise! Just make sure you don’t rack your consumer debt up again with travel and motivation. Every tool you buy should produce a tangible result.
To say you paid off 26 grand in 3 months is a tad misleading. You simply eliminated your consumer debt with savings. You don’t have the debt, but you have also lost your equity and long term security. It’s not like you found a way to come up with 26 grand in 3 months.
I wish you the best in your journey, despite how this post may read. I hope you see my perspective.
Thanks for the comments “Rocket”.
Just before I reply, you need to realize this blog is about my experiences and what I’ve gone through. I don’t watch much t.v. to be honest, never really have and I’ve never watched “Til Debt Do Us Part”. For me I’d rather talk to someone in person, someone I can actually get feedback from instead of from a t.v. show which doesn’t talk back to you or give you feeback or for that matter a real conversation.
I can tell you by us being open and honest about our debt it will only help us not fall into the same trap we were in before. We are surounded by people who don’t want that so in turn we won’t fall into that trap because of that. Travel and Motivation as you put it must be a jab at the business we are part of, however I can tell you our business account pays for that without us touching our personal money.
I don’t think it’s misleading because really how many people actually do this? Not many. Like I said I’ve always been told by the average person to save save save, don’t touch those long term investments. Well if I kept listening to that I’d still be paying that high interest. So yeah did I take from peter to pay for paul, sure but not everyone is willing to do that. I’m in a business where I fully believe will help with my future security.
Again this is MY personal experiences, take it or leave it for what it is.
That’s awesome you guys! Super happy for yoU!