Is Being Scroogelike the only way to Rid Myself of Debt?
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If you are trying to get out of debt you might feel like you will be having to scrimp and save every penny and never be able to give to charity or treat friends and family to anything. This can feel very wring to a lot of people. It is natural to want to be generous and help others but it is important to get a balance so that we do not increase our debt more or so that we are unable to repay it.
Set a budget
It is possible to set a budget so that you can still afford some generosity while you are paying off your loans. It is up to you. If you carefully work out how much money you have coming in and how much you need to spend on necessities you will be able to see what is left. Some of what is left you will want to pay towards repaying your loan but you might want to allocate some of it to other things. It will depend on how much you have left and how quickly you want to repay the loan. If you do not mind repaying it more slowly then you can use more to pay towards charity and giving gifts. It may mean that you will have to give up spending in other areas so that you can still do this or that you will need to spend a bit less than normal on this sort of thing. You will have to work out how to balance it all so that you can repay the debt and still be able to give the money that you want to.
Explain to people
It can be a good idea to explain to people that you will be repaying your debts and so will not be so well off. If they have come to rely on you to help them out financially or have got used to you treating them, they will understand that this will not happen so much while you are repaying your quick loan. Most of them will completely understand and this will mean that they will be happy to ask you for less or to expect less for a while. If they do not understand then it may indicate that they are not really grateful for the help that you are giving them. It might be the case that they are grateful that you are going to be doing less because they may feel that they have to normally reciprocate and it might be something that they cannot afford to do. They might feel guilty anyway and decide that this is a good time to stop so much gift giving.
Only temporary
It is also worth remembering that the situation is only temporary. Once the debt is repaid then you will be able to afford to give more money again. In fact, because you will not be paying interest on your debts, you will actually have more money to give away if you want to. It could therefore be better to pay out less money and concentrate on repaying that debt and then you will more quickly have more money available to be able to pay out even more. It might seem like although it is temporary, it is still a long time. It might be that it will take years to repay the loan. However, it is important to make sure that you do not let your debts go out of control and so allocating some money towards repayment is really important. You need to make sure that you do not feel guilty for doing this as it is very likely that those you are helping would not want to think that your generosity to them has led to you being in debt. Most people would not want to think that they have caused this.
So, whether you decide to be Scroogelike or not is really up to you. If you cannot bear to stop giving money to charity and things to others then you should be able to budget for it. However, the loan will not last forever and so you should be able to soon be able to start giving money again if you want to. It may also be that you want to be able to treat yourself to things and you might still be able to do this to some extent. However, you will need to be careful with this as well, because you will need to use as much money as you can to pay off the loan. It is good to give it some thought and decide whether you would rather concentrate on repaying the loan and adopt Scroogelike behaviour or whether you would like to not do this and repay the loan more slowly. It will really depend on where your priorities lie and only you will really know this.