Earlier today I seen a commercial for a “Debt Relief” Company that was advertising to help you lower your monthly minimum payment. I think this company has their thinking completely backwards. They said if you owed $20,000 and were paying more than $200 a month then you are paying way too much each month.

Now I’m confused here. Isn’t the point to pay off your debt as soon as possible? Even if you were not paying any interest each month it would still take you a little over 8 years to pay off $20,000 at $200 a month. I think you need get that debt paid off asap and be done with it forever.

Don’t sit around making tiny payments each month and barely eat away at your debt. Get yourself focused and hit that debt with all you have.

When paying off your debts I think its helpful to create a wall of fame (or maybe a wall of shame. Shameful for ever having the debts in the first place). What I mean by that is as you pay off each debt write Paid Off and put it up on your wall as a reminder of the progress that you are making. Making something visual can really help your progress. Its like setting goals as you see something paid off you know its working and it keeps you going.

Well now that I have your attention from my completely ridiculous title for my post. Hopefully I can explain it while not making myself look completely stupid. (probably not). Back in 2001 after I was married we went up to South Dakota for our honeymoon. Being the really fun an exciting people that my wife and I are. We spent most of our time playing pool and foosball in the hotel game room.

Also in the game room they had one of those claw machines that have all sorts of stupid stuffed animals in them. Well my wife saw one that she thought was cute and we decided to try it. What I’m going to tell you next may be shocking, but we didn’t win immediately. (Shocker huh?) So we tried again and again and again. Finally we were able to get that one out of the machine. Did we stop there? Not a chance. A few more tries and we got another one out and then another. I’m not sure if you know this but after you get a couple out the animals are much easier to free from the machine.

Well after an undisclosed amount of time and money was spent. And a collection of stuffed animals large enough to open a stuffed pet store, we decided that we had enough fun. We most likely could of bought those animals somewhere else for much cheaper. Its stupid things like the claw machine that keep people broke. You might think that its just 50 cents in a machine. But it could easily be anything like lottery tickets. You dont realize how much you are spending until its all said and done and your broke.

Don’t let the “claw machine” in your life get you.