How one couple got themselves out of $50,000 in credit card debt
Husbands David Auten and John Schneider live a post-debt lifestyle. But it wasn't always that way. They did it by crawling their way out of more than $50,000 in credit card debt.
"We realized that we were financially and literally living in a hole."
After sitting down and looking over their spending habits, they realized they needed a way to reduce the thousands they were paying in high interest on their credit cards.
"When we were looking at the various methods to pay off our credit card debt, such as the snowball method and the avalanche method, we've realized our estimation was that it was going to take us anywhere from eight to 10 years to pay off our $51,000 in credit card debt. The problem with that was that we didn't have the patience to use either of those methods."
That's when they developed the lasso method for paying down their debt.
The first rule, they say, is to commit to the process.
How this couple erased more than $100K in debt in 2 years
Then you have to lasso your debt into as few locations as possible.
They recommend finding a credit card with low or no interest and transferring your balances to the new card.
And then automate your payments so the debt is paid off before the promotional interest rate expires.
"For some people, that means getting a zero balance transfer credit card. For other people, that means a personal loan."
The best part? They got rid of their debt in three years versus the eight to 10 they were expecting.
"I think our advice to anyone who thinks that credit cards is unlimited money is to take a look at what happens when you use it. You have to pay it back. It is not unlimited money."
