Debt is a terrible master and affects people in too many diverse ways to enumerate on one page, so we will only deal with five of the worse debt affects.

Debt is a slow killer of enthusiasm, joy in life and the feeling of freedom. When one is indebted either to another person or to a financial institution it feels as if one is dragging a heavy load on a long chain strung around their neck.

There is an easy answer but it is too glib to be applicable in today’s world where everyone, in one form or another, owes someone, something. The answer is to simply pay-off all your debts as soon as possible.

How many types of debt are there?

There are many types of debt today. With all our populations aging and the “baby-boomers” reaching retiring age, most of us feel that we owe our parents a happy retirement. When some of them become afflicted with Alzheimer, arthritis or all their bad life decisions ‘come home to roost’ and they find themselves having to survive on a pension (for all those countries lucky enough to provide a social security system) then children feel duty-bound to look after their parents. This kind of debt makes many people feel angry, tied-down, unappreciated and heavily indebted.

How does being in financial debt make you feel?

Debt today for a very large percentage of our population is financial. There are very few people who do not owe money to someone or some financial institution. In fact, western society is built on consumerism. Without consumerism, our Countries and communities as we know them today would not exist. While this financial foundation served the purpose of getting people back to work after the Second World War, it hasn’t yet finished.

When people couldn’t afford to buy goods and services from their pay packets, the financial institutions came up with the idea of lending people the money to buy the goods that they and others produced. This was the beginning of the world’s financial debt woes and it hasn’t as yet reached its end. But I predict one day it will.

Today, many people feel heavily burdened with their escalating debt and this is showing up in our communities with symptoms of depression, anxiety disorders, family breakdowns, and in some cases, suicides.

What is your emotional response when the credit card bills arrive every month?

So when you open your mailbox and sift through your snail-mail and see the familiar credit card bill, what do you feel? Do you dread opening the letter? Does your stomach tighten and churn, hands shake, and mouth go dry? These are the physical symptoms of anxiety and are the emotional response to a perceived danger.

How do you feel when you make more than a minimum payment every month?

Any month that we have fewer expenses and are able to make a credit card payment over the minimum amount due, a debtor should do so because this will mean paying out less in interest money over the course of the loan. The feeling of relief this brings, even if it is only fleeting, is something to be savoured, sought again and remembered. To get the feeling and emotional relief again becomes a driving force to finish paying off the debt.

Have you ever paid off all your credit card debt and how did you feel when you saw the zero balance?

If you have ever managed to pay off all your credit card debt you will know just how good this makes a person feel. The weight on your shoulders seems to physically lessen, you feel jaunty and full of hope again and have an enthusiasm for life that has been conspicuously absent for a long time.  In fact, many people aren’t even aware that hope has been missing from life until it returns.

Hope allows people the freedom to dream and achieve. If you can dream, you can achieve and if you don’t lose focus through being burdened with debt, you have gained financial freedom.