My husband and I were up to our eyeballs in debt, making good money and really watching our latte factor, but still paying for mistakes from our past (run up credit card bills, car loans, student loans, a HUGE mortgage, and loans from friends and family), it was horrible! We were slowly making progress on our debt(REALLY slowly), but we listended to Davids advice and did whatever we could to dig ourselves out of our financial hole.
One thing David said was that becoming landlords is easy, and really helps to put you on the path to financial freedom. We didnt have the money to buy another house, but we did have a third bedroom in our house that we were just using as a junk room. We decided that we shouldnt wait to become landlords just because we couldnt afford to buy another house, so we put an ad in the paper and rented out the room to a university student for $500 a month not including groceries. After all the extra bills from having our tenant here are paid, we still have about $400 extra dollars a month to use to pay down our debt. In only 4 and a half months, we have seen such a huge difference in our financial situation, its really inspiring to see our debt being reduced so quickly. When you add together the money that we get from our renter and the money that we were already using to pay our debt down, we’re paying almost $900 a month! Within a year we will be halfway there, and in two years when all the debt is gone, we are going to take the money that we were using to pay it down and save it as a down payment on an investment property.
Our best friends were in the same situation as we were, except they had two kids and lived in a 3 bedroom. They talked to their kids, explained the situation, and the kids agreed to move into the same room for a year so their parents could make a dent in their debt. Because they live in a ritzier part of town, they are able to charge $800 a month for their exta room, and they also are in a way better financial, and consequently, emotial state. Thanks David, your words of wisdom and encouragement really helped both our families