If you are in a similar position to ours, you must ask yourself that question all the time. Where does all our money go? How do I get out of debt and build wealth? Many of us don’t want to change our lifestyle, yet, we do want to get out of debt. Can it be done? From what I am learning, I believe it can be done -- but, you need to learn how to organize your finances, take control over your debt, taking control over your spending, take control over your savings, and look for additional revenue if that is possible. As you may have noticed, the theme here is that we need to own our own financial lives: we need to know where we stand, we need to manage our money, we need to decide what debt is worthwhile and what debt just drains us, we need to know our own spending habits, and how we can change them in a way that we are comfortable with, and we need to know what to do with our savings that we work so hard to accumulate.
I'm learning that the most important change I have made so far is to restructure the way I manage the family's finances. That's the single most important thing to do because that lays out everything before your eyes and allows you to set your priorities about what you need to deal with first. It also allows you to keep up with the future: if your finances are organized in an easily accessible way, you will have no reason not to spend a few minutes a day adding information or changing information as necessary keeping you well-aware of how your financial changes are working (or not).
The second step for us, and I think, for most people, is to figure out what can be cut or eliminated from your spending, and how your debt is impacting on the rest of your financial situation. Our goal was to put more money toward debt and savings without making too huge an impact on our spending. I know that sounds impossible, but, what I mean by that is managing our spending, and buying what we need and what we choose not to live without while eliminating impulse buys and unimportant things. That is the only way I think our family could live with a plan: it had to be one that allows us to spend on the things that are important to us. If you go on a diet, and you feel deprived, you won't stay with it long; it's the same with financial management. There are so many things that can be done that can change your finances but have little impact on your quality of life. In order to figure out what we could do, I've been both researching and trying out ideas.
When you go on the internet to find out how to gain wealth and get rid of debt, you will find a lot of programs that promise to do certain things for you to guarantee success with little or no time or effort on your part. Most "GET RICH QUICK" schemes are exactly that. My husband and I are doing more research into the program by John Cummuta, Turning Debt Into Wealth, and while we have not yet committed to it, we have gleaned a lot of ideas from looking at the information and talking to some of the folks there. So far, as I understand it, a coach or mentor works with the family to help them figure out the things I am now learning plus some and then acts as someone to be accountable to. Obviously, such a mentoring system costs money; however, the downloaded information (which was brief) was worthwhile as a starting point to my ideas.
I have done a lot of research. I have been to dozens of websites and read lots of articles and am working my way through books to find success for my family and, I hope, yours. After all that research, I've taken some advice and discarded other advice, but I will tell you one thing for certain. Like I suspected, and, like you probably suspect, wealth can be made, and you can create a better financial outlook, but not through most of those programs touted on the radio, t.v. and over the internet. Those people who try to sell you the key to such wealth quickly are making themselves rich -- NOT YOU and not me. I've been reading books, watching television shows, and consulting with people who have done well financially. Over the years, my husband and I have found that we are honest people who make great targets for the types of scammers that abound today. But, we are at a major turning point in our lives and I can't find one honest, positive opinion about any of the so-called GET RICH QUICK schemes that I've come across. (John Cummuta is not a "Get Rich Quick" idea, it's a way to get out of debt and make wealth, but not necessarily quickly.)
Honestly, we need to accept that there is no magic bullet or else we would all be rich. There are just a lot of small and large steps we can take that can help us rid ourselves of debt and gain us wealth. So, my husband and I have ruled out "getting rich quick" and decided instead that the advice that made sense to us and for us was to do things the right way from here on out, but try to find ways to do them the smart way: in other words, make our money work for us rather than the creditors, find a way to capitalize on all of our knowledge and hard work (and we are both good at what we do, smart, thoughtful, and, great learners), and decrease spending without giving up the things we feel are most important to us. There’s really no magic to it; learning to live smarter and more organized in all matters financial is hard to do. But, that is precisely what we are doing. AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY BEGINNING TO SHOW IN OUR BANK STATEMENTS AND OUR DEBT. The good, honest, solid advice may take longer, but it will work, you will not spend money in pursuit of money, and you will not have to change your lifestyle in ways that are important to you. And isn't that really what you are looking for here? That way, you can eliminate the debt and gain the wealth.