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These days, it’s just about impossible for the average person to get ahead in life without taking on debt. If you want to get an education, start a business or buy a house, you’ll probably need financing to do it. Taking on that debt can be a whole lot easier than getting rid of it. It’s therefore vital to approach the issue mindfully.

Make sure you have a clear plan to repay debt

In simple terms, the longer you need to pay back debt, the riskier that debt becomes. The reason for this is that you are fairly likely to know what will happen in the short-term future. Seeing into the long-term future, by contrast, is much more difficult.

For example, let’s say you borrow money to cover Christmas. You know, from experience, that there are ways to make some quick cash in the New Year. You can therefore be fairly sure you have it covered. Now let’s say you take out a loan to pay for an education. This stretches for years into the future. Really, nobody can know for sure what will happen over that time.

That said, anyone can do their research and use it to create reasonable long-term projections. For example, in the case of education, you could initially look at job opportunities and salary expectations over time. If they looked good, you could then go on to check if the jobs were in sectors with long-term potential. If so, then you would have a clear plan to repay your debt.

Take a “debt to success” mindset

You may have heard of the “Debt to Success System”.  Is Debt to Success System scam? No.  Are there many “Debt to Success System” scam imitators? Yes, and you need to avoid them. The whole point about the debt to success mindset is that you make peace with your past actions. Then you move on, focusing on future success.

This approach helps to alleviate the stress of managing debt. It flips the situation from being one of recovery to one of discovery. Instead of being negatively motivated (by fear of missing debt repayments), you’re positively motivated (by future growth).

Turn debt management into a game

Turn debt management into a game in which you aim to beat the banks. They want to make as much money out of you as possible. This means that the way to win is to make sure that you’re always paying as little as possible for your debt.

The foundation for your gameplay is to keep your credit score as high as it can possibly be. After that, it’s about deploying your resources strategically. For example, if you have a mixture of high-interest debt and low-interest debt, then you generally want to focus your disposable funds on the high-interest debt.

You also want to be quick about moving your debt to a better location whenever you can. For example, if you can transfer a balance from a higher-interest product to a lower-interest product, then you make a gain! Last but not least, remember that even the best game players can benefit from some coaching, so look at getting helpful advice, at least with big decisions.