Want Less Debt?
They have really sold us. Madison Avenue, the big banks, they have sold us into using debt with credit cards and credit cards are insidious. Credit cards are very dangerous because what happens is we don’t keep track. We don’t keep track of what we’re spending. It’s so easy to put the plastic out there and end up with what you want but then the bill comes and, I don’t know about you, but I go, when did I buy that? Oh my gosh! Where did that come from? I go and I remember, oh my gosh, yes, that was a spur of the moment. It was a very quick decision. I thought I needed this. Now I’m going to have to pay for it. It is very, very difficult.
As a matter of fact, it is so difficult for me that I basically had to not use credit cards for a period of time. I had to fast credit cards. Can you imagine that? The reason I had to fast credit cards is because I couldn’t handle them. I could not do it. Debt is a very, very dangerous, and it kind of creeps up on you. What ends up happening is that we end up in a position where we get in debt and we don’t even know how we got there.
One of the questions that I want to ask today is why debt in the first place? What is the motivation to take on debt? What’s the motivation? In another segment I talked about, if you want to be somebody then it’s going to be very hard to have enough money and the reason is because if you try, as I did, to use debt to further my drive and motivation to be somebody and to be paid attention to and thought of as important and valuable, then what’s going to happen is I’m going to end up using debt unwisely.
Is it Biblically wrong to use debt? No, it’s not. Please get that understood. God knew that we would be debtors. We would use debt improperly. He told Moses, as a matter of fact, to do the law so that every seven years the people would go out of debt. That’s a very, very important thing to know. Is debt unGodly? No. Debt is not unGodly. But, let me tell you, like everything else, if you get out of balance, like I did, oh my gosh, debt will eat you alive as it did me.
One of the things we need to recognize is some scriptural verses about what the consequences are for debt. What is likely to happen? Well, we know in Proverbs 27 that, I believe it’s 1, that the rich will rule over the poor and the borrower serves the lender. The borrower servers the lender. I want to tell you, that is a true statement. Do what I did and not be able to pay your credit card debt you’re going to find out how tough they can be and if it gets to collection it’s a disaster. They’ll call you every 5 minutes and make life very, very miserable because the borrower serves the lender. It’s very, very important to recognize that if you are in debt that you are serving the lender. You are not the lender. You are the tail and not the head. We’re not supposed to be the tail, we’re supposed to be the head. We need to recognize why did we get into debt in the first place? Was it to try to keep up with the Jones’, keep up with the neighbors? Did we need a bigger car, bigger house? Whatever because if we did, it’s going to be a big time problem to get out of debt.
I’m going to tell you something that I learned about this. This is very, very important. Please, put your listening ears on, stay with me here. This is vitally important. Here’s what I learned about debt. Debt is very easy to get into, very difficult to get out of. Let me tell you why. When you borrow money, and that’s what you’re doing, you’re putting it on a credit card, you’re borrowing from the bank, you’re doing whatever. When you borrow money it doesn’t trigger any kind of tax event. When you pay off debt it triggers a tax event. Why? You have to earn the money to pay the debt so here’s why debt is so dangerous. You have to earn the money to pay off the debt. When you earn money do you pay taxes on it? Yes you do. So now you’re paying off less debt because you have to pay your taxes so you are not going dollar for dollar. You’re not paying off debt dollar for dollar because why? Because you are paying a tax and then paying off debt. That’s a horrible problem. I learned the hard way.
In fact, I learned the hard way so badly that I ended up with a million dollars worth of debt. Now you say, what! You ended up with a million dollars worth of debt? Yes I did. I will fully admit. It’s actually probably more than that but I had lost my house by then. That house was, I think I had owed about 400,000 on that house but I’m just talking about personal debt. I had a million dollars worth of personal debt. Why? Because I was trying to be somebody. Because I was trying to prove I was valuable, important, and worthy. I started a public mutual fund.
Let me tell you my background. I was a financial planner for 25 years. I was also and investment banker for some of that time. One of the things that I wanted to do was that I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to be valuable. I wanted to be important because my father never was able to give me that. One of the things that happened is I started a public mutual fund. I didn’t try, I did it. I have that much drive that I was able to put together a public mutual fund. I borrowed thousands. I think it was 250,000 dollars to put that public mutual fund together. They don’t come together without money. I ended up with that debt. Then I add car debt and hit installment debt. I had debt everywhere.
The biggest debt I had was, I was raising money for this company and what ended up happening is they paid me in notes. Well, it was great because I was paid by debt. I was paid by notes. IOU’s. What happened is, I got the money but I got it in the form of a note. What I had to do one day is to, the piper was going to come home to roost, the chickens were going to come home to roost, and I was going to end up paying a huge amount of debt. That was about 400,000 dollars worth of that personal debt for my money so I didn’t pay taxes on it.
What happened is, I had to wipe all that out in a bankruptcy. I don’t know if you have ever looked at bankruptcy. I did a chapter 7. My self image was based on what I did, not who I was so when I had to file bankruptcy everybody was going to know it and I couldn’t believe that I had to do this. I just couldn’t believe it. I was forced into bankruptcy. I wouldn’t have ever done it on my own but then I also didn’t pay the IRS. Oops. I didn’t pay the IRS. I owed 80,000 dollars to the IRS. Not good planning right? Well, I owed 80,000 dollars to the IRS I did an offering compromise. I didn’t make any money. God set it up so that I could get out of the thing for 10,000 dollars but I didn’t even have the 10,000 dollars. A friend of mine, who helped me start the mutual fund, ended up paying of me to get out of the clutches, and I want to tell you, if you, talk about serving the lender.
If you don’t pay your IRS debt folks, what’s going to happen is you’re going to wish you had because the IRS is a tough taskmaster. Oh my gosh! If I missed a payment, if I did anything, but I couldn’t do it so I got a Chapter 7 and I went bankrupt. Not only bankrupt but then I got a Chapter 7, I mean I got an offering compromise and had to pay my taxes off that way. Didn’t do much for my credit but I didn’t want good credit because I couldn’t handle debt. You may not be able to handle debt. If you can’t you know what, it’s okay, because you need to know that you can handle debt incrementally.
One of the things that I talk to people about and I counsel people about is how to pay off debt. I can’t do it here today because I have some specific instructions. I have specific ways to pay off debt. I can’t do it here today but if you give me your email and you tell me that you want to get some information on paying off debt I will show you a proven, tried method for paying off debt.
Let me tell you one thing that I will tell you real quickly here and that is I don’t use credit cards unless I’m buying something that I know that I can pay off, I keep track of it and not only that. The only reason I’m using the credit card is because I want to have recourse if I don’t get the thing that I’m buying or it comes broken or whatever. I want to have recourse. That’s the only reason otherwise I use debit cards. I use a debit card. The reason I used a debit card is because I don’t want debt. I live debt free now and the church is debt free. I don’t want any debt.
The reason I don’t want any debt is because I paid the price. And you know what, if you have a lot of debt, I can help you and I’ll be glad to help you, give me your email like I said, but recognize it’s a battle. Debt can almost be, and credit card use, can almost be addictive. In fact, I’ll say it very often is addictive. It probably gives you a high to spend the money but it will give you very much of a downer when you’ve got to pay it back. If that’s your problem, and you want help, then you’ve come to the right place.
You’re on the JoyStones website. If you’re not on the JoyStones website then you need to go to the JoyStones website and the JoyStones website is joystones.org. Let me say that again joystones.org. When you come there you’re not only going to find out about debt, having less debt, I have two other subjects in the financial section. I have subjects in the relationship section. I have subjects in the health section. I have subjects in the spiritual section. I have subjects in the could which is the mind, will, and emotions. All told, there’s 15 videos not more than 10-12 minutes apiece. I want you to know, we’re here to help you get out of debt. You don’t have to be in debt anymore. Give us your email. Let us help you get out of debt