EOD POLL: The Challenges of Becoming Debt Free (Pick Top 5)

On Monday I asked for you to respond in the comments section detailing your biggest challenges to becoming debt free. I received some really great responses and really appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts and struggles. I decided to create a reader poll to list some of these challenges but also add a few more things I thought others might experience in their debt free journey.

This time I want you to pick the TOP 5 CHALLENGES you face. This may seem redundant but I assure you it has a purpose. Now that I have a rough idea of what a sample of my readers struggles with, I want to find out what I need to focus on first. I also wanted to give those who didn’t feel comfortable leaving a comment in the last article a chance to be heard. After I shut the poll down I will immediately start writing articles based on the data collected.

Any of us could probably pick 80% of choices on this list but I want to know what you struggle with the MOST! Pick the TOP 5 and leave a comment if you want to elaborate on your selections. Comments are ALWAYS welcome! 😀

What are your TOP 5 Biggest Challenges to Debt Freedom

What About Becoming Debt Free Challenges You the Most?
 Sacrifice
 Teamwork
 Eating Out
 Instant Gratification
 Impulsive Spending
 Motivation
 Unexpected Emergencies
 Budgeting
 Income
 Accountability
 Savings
 Fear
 Patience
 Minimum Payments
 Methodology
 Family
 Denial
 Behavioral Change
 Addiction
 Lifestyle
 Anxiety
 Confidence
 Procrastination
 Mindset
 Being a Single Parent
 Medical Condition
 Disability
 Unemployment
 Poverty
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9 Responses to “EOD POLL: The Challenges of Becoming Debt Free (Pick Top 5)”

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  1. Petunia100 says:

    I think my biggest challenge is I waiver back and forth on if mortgage prepayment is really the best use of my extra funds. I go in spurts where I prepay what I can and then decide nope, should save/invest that money instead. I haven’t prepaid much at all on my current mortgage, but prepaid like gangbusters in the past.

    I know I am a day late and a dollar short with my answer, my apoligies.

    • Brad Chaffee says:

      Petunia your comment says one very big thing about you. You are constantly thinking about what’s best for you at the time. I think that is awesome because some decisions might be better certain times but not at others.

      No worries at all about missing the first post. First I wanted to find out what people struggled with and now I want to focus in on what the biggest problems are for most people. I hope you took the opportunity to choose your top 5 answers above.

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s never too late. 🙂

  2. Ashley says:

    I’m very interested in the results of this poll… I hope you get an awesome response!

    • Brad Chaffee says:

      Yeah I am too. I wanted to give people who don’t like commenting a chance to respond but I also felt like there were so many things not mentioned. I added a few psychological roadblocks that perhaps some hadn’t thought of. 🙂

      I was going to take it down after a week but since decided it would be good to keep up for latecomers. Next week I’m going to check out the data and start a writing. LOL

  3. Vicki says:

    Hey Brad – Awesome poll. I had to reflect on these to really think about what is my biggest obstacles.

  4. I just took the poll…as mentioned in a comment to your previous poll, fear of not being the perfect husband is definitely the biggest one for me. Surprising, I also picked eating out…even though paying that bill over and over again even though I love to cook just KILLS me!

  5. Serena says:

    Brad, I was about to skip over your poll (since I had already commented on the first post that you mentioned about biggest challenges). But then I thought to myself, “Well, if there is any good time to concisely identify what my challenges are that keep me from being debt-free, now’s as best of a time to do it. And so, I picked:

    *Sacrifice
    *Instant gratification
    *Impulsive spending
    *Budgeting
    *Procrastination

    In selecting these, I realize that the reason I haven’t made debt repayment and budgeting a priority is because — DRUM ROLL, PLEASE– I don’t want to. Simply put, I don’t want to. Dave Ramsey talked about this in one of his Podcasts that I listened to recently. He said something like, the only time you will become debt free is when you’ve had ENOUGH. When you have hit rock bottom and you can say, “Okay, this has got to STOP!!!!!” And when he said that, it hit me like a ton of bricks: I’m not there yet. And the reason why I am not, is because I don’t feel like I am drowning in debt. For some reason, in my head, I believe I have told myself, “Okay, so I have $3,700 in credit debt…..That’s unlike me [since I have been known to pay off balanced each month, but after buying our house, it’s risen], but since there are others who have THOUSANDS of credit debt, my situation really isn’t THAT bad….”

    And I tell myself, “Yeah, I’ve got $27,000 in school loans, but check out those people that have $50,000–now THAT is a lot of school loan debt! Nah, I’m not doing too bad…..”

    How can I make debt repayment a priority when I am not “there” yet, as Dave Ramsey would say? How can you admit you need to make a change when you don’t feel like you have a HUGE problem??

    So, what I do is procrastinate in creating a meal plan, which I KNOW would lower my food expenses so that I could have more money to pay down debt…….I allow myself impulse buys (mind you, impulse buys for me means buying whatever I want at the grocery store, or spending $10 on pizza or something “frivolous” like that…..Because, another lie I tell myself is, “Well, it’s not like I’m at the mall spending impulsively on clothes worth hundreds of dollars. All I’m doing is buying food, and what’s $5 here or $10 there?”

    Anyhow, would love to keep expanding on this, because it’s actually pretty therapeutic, but I think I’ve taken up a lot of space already! LOL

    Thanks for allowing me a chance to become introspective about what’s really going on with me financially!!!!

    Serena

    • Kathy says:

      @ Serena ~ I call that ‘justifying’ and I have done/do the same. I’m ‘there’ with my credit card debt, just not with my eating out and grocery bills.

      Kathy

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