Are you in debt?

I don’t mean to get all personal on you. It’s OK to admit though, many of us are in debt in some way, shape, or form (we are).

If you want to get rid of your debt help is here – The Debt Movement.

This will be a HUGE 3-month push to pay down debt. You will have the opportunity to join together with personal finance bloggers as well as people like yourself who are working their way out of debt.

I had the fortune of shooting a few questions to Jeff Rose, The Debt Movement’s founder and chief evangelist , also known for his excellent site Good Financial Cents.

Me: Jeff, what is The Debt Movement all about?



Jeff: The Debt Movement is to help people pay off $10 million of debt in 90 days. I partnered with ReadyForZero to help people get a true picture of their debt situation and pay it off with ease. I have also partnered with other finance sites and the personal finance blogging community to educate our readers in their quest of finally becoming debt free.

As a CFP, how have you seen debt impact people? How serious a problem is debt?

I have seen debt impact friends of mine that were in college that maxed out student loans and credit cards. I recall one friend who had over $40,000 of debt between his student loans and credit cards while in college and never even got his degree. He had to file bankruptcy before his 27th birthday.

I can also think of another meeting I had with potential clients that were on the verge of retiring.

In our first meeting, they claimed to me they did not have that much debt, but when I tried to pinpoint exactly how much debt they had, they could not answer the question. I made them report back with the exact number and it turns out that the “not much debt” that they thought they had turned out to be over $50,000 of consumer debt.

Having that much debt approaching retirement makes it nearly impossible or at least that much more difficult to retire when you want and how you want.

Me: Wow. I think one of the biggest problems we, as consumers, have with debt is looking at our finances and admitting what our real debt situation really is.

How can our readers take part in The Debt Movement?

The first thing they can do is go over to the Debtmovement.com website and sign up for our newsletter. We will be communicating a lot of the correspondence via email.

Be sure also to join our Facebook Fan page and check out our forums.

We will be hosting Google hangouts throughout the 90-day movement where I bring in personal finance experts in topics such as credit cards, credit scores, student loans, medical bills, etc. We want to make sure that we give you the tools and resources that you need to conquer your debt situation.

Tell me about the debt scholarships and how those will work?

The debt scholarships were funded by various sponsors of The Debt Movement which includes financial companies and personal finance bloggers.

We currently have over $10,000 of scholarship money to giveaway. For those interested in earning a debt scholarship, the first thing they need to do is apply. They can get more information on the Debt Movement site as well as the newsletter.

Throughout the 90 day period, scholarship hopefuls will have to fill out as minimum semi-monthly surveys on how their debt progress is going. Winners will be hand selected based on transparency and how they approach their own personal debt situations. We are looking for people that through great sacrifice and strong determination will do whatever it takes to finally get out of debt.

What are your goals with the debt movement? What would make it a success in your eyes?

Obviously, I would love to hit the goal of paying off $10 million of debt in 90 days. That would be a great accomplishment in itself.

Even more so is that people that want to get out of debt can make the necessary changes in their financial habits to do so.

Paying off $5000 of credit card during the 90 days does not do any good if after the 90 days they rack up another $10,000 on that same card. We want to change people’s financial mindset when it comes to approaching debt and other financial related topics.

In short, I want to change the world. 🙂

Me: Indeed, those are lofty goals. But I think think they are very do-able!

Thank you Jeff for taking time out of your busy day to help us learn a little more about The Debt Movement!

Finally

Look people, I know what debt can be like. I’ve had those days where you try to think about the debt you’re in and it quite literally chokes you; you can’t breathe. So you put it off. And it grows. I’ve had those days where it looks like you will never find a way to pay off your debt. You just can’t keep up with it.

But you can pay it down.

The Debt Movement has some great backing and I’m personally excited to see what they can accomplish. If you are having trouble conquering your debt then hop on over to The Debt Movement.

And if you still need convincing, take a look at this emotionally raw video for The Debt Movement: