The thing is, it’s not what we buy or spend money on that puts us into debt.

It’s how we choose to do it.

With debt vs. with money

I’ve bought vacations using debt, and I’ve bought (significantly more expensive) vacations using money. In both cases, I bought a vacation. I came home guilt free from one of them (hello, New Zealand!) and with a sense of unease and stress from the other (I’m talking to you, Nebraska!)

What I bought had nothing to do with it, but that’s something that’s often confused.

On struggling

Worse, people seem to have this idea that you have to suffer and give up things to stay debt free, but it’s the opposite that’s really true. You have to suffer and give up things to stay in debt.

They’re just less tangible things, like…your health, well-being, relationships, and financial future.

You can have the vacations and meals out either way, but one way is a whole lot more satisfying — and actually easier once you do get there.

Yes, you almost certainly will have to suffer and do some hard work as you figure out how to get out of debt — just like you would if you were working at giving up heroin.

Luckily, debt is not quite as addicting, and there are fewer withdrawal symptoms. But it does require a permanent change.

That change is in your behavior.

Plan ahead, save up the cash, and you can buy whatever you want to buy with money — for less than it would cost you using debt. Which means you can buy more stuff, and do more things, while being better off financially in the process.

Once you’re debt free, you’ll have a lot more money available — money that you used to pay to creditors for interest, fees, and payments, but that will now be available for you. Continue to pay attention to your finances, and you can budget in all kinds of fun stuff.

Here are just a few of the guilt-free things you can do when you’re out of debt:

1. Go out to eat
2. Pay cash for your next new car, and drive it off the lot knowing that you own it
3. Buy a Lotus Elise — in other words, pay cash for a fun car that you don’t even need
4. Take trips to your favorite places
5. Check the mail without dread
6. Deposit your check and watch the money stay in your account until you decide to spend it
7. Buy a new entertainment system
8. Finally get rid of that ratty old couch
9. Get that expensive surgery your pet needs without worrying about how you’re going to pay for it
10. Send your kid on a field trip to Washington, D.C.
11. Go clothes shopping because there’s a fun sale and you have the money
12. Contribute to retirement and college funds
13. Take the kids to Disneyland
14. Have movie night on a regular basis — at the theater, even

And that’s only a start. You can do whatever you plan to do, once your money is all yours.

What would you add to the list?

P.S. Just wanted to say a quick thank you to Sustainable Personal Finance for including my post on Having Trouble Getting Your Spouse on Board in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance.

There’s just one problem: your spouse isn’t on board. They may pay lip service, but they’re not following that up with action. Or worse, maybe they’re actually making things worse by going out and buying things on credit.

Start with why

If you’re having trouble getting your spouse on board, remember to start with why.

As Simon Sinek puts it in his book Start with Why, Martin Luther King Jr. “gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, not the ‘I Have a Plan’ speech.”. And in doing so, he inspired.

It’s inspiration that leads to action, and action leads to changes.

Share your dream

You’re not getting out of debt for no reason, so share your vision of a debt free future. What will things be like? What will you be able to do then that you can’t now? What would your spouse be able to do that would get them excited?

Clearly articulate that instead of whipping out a spreadsheet and a proposed bare-bones budget. Inspire and sell the dream.

Add time and enthusiasm

You’ve also got to give your spouse time. After all, you didn’t decide to change overnight. Your thoughts percolated, you struggled, you researched solutions, you saw possibilities, and then you got excited.

Give your spouse time to do the same. I talked about how great it would be to have a paid-for house for what felt like a long time before my husband came on board with that idea. Even then, there were things he wanted to do first before working on paying off our mortgage.

But I kept talking about my vision, and gave him time. After all, his ideas matter just as much as mine. Now, sometimes he is the one talking to me about how great things will be when we’re completely debt free.

So start with why. Inspire, and then act — while coming back regularly to your inspiration for shots of motivation.

And sometimes, it still feels like you’re getting nowhere fast.

But you are getting somewhere — even if you’re having setbacks, or not seeing your balances go down as quickly as you would like. (Believe me, I’d love to see our mortgage balance go down faster!)

That’s why it’s really important to nurture your debt free dream on a regular basis.

Spend time on your why

Think about why you’re getting out of debt. Imagine what things will be like when you are. Really picture it, write it out, or talk about it with other supportive people.

Think of yourself as a pioneer, only without the strong possibility of dying along the way. The pioneers had more than a goal: they had a dream. And they nurtured the heck out of that dream while they walked across America, enduring blizzards, lack of water, attacks, disease, and other hardships.

They kept going, no matter how hard things got. They continued putting one foot in front of the other, focused on that beautiful land and future they would have one day — and not the blisters they could feel on their rag-wrapped feet.

Don’t turn back

You don’t turn back when you’ve got a dream. You keep going. Sometimes, you rest and regroup for a few days. Sometimes you get sidetracked by how easy it might have been to just stayed home like those normal people back east who thought you were crazy for venturing out into the wild.

But then you remember what you really want.

Nurture your debt free dream, and you’ll enjoy the fruits of your labor when you get there.

(Mentally insert a serious-yet-appealing mascot here, who warns that only you can prevent debt.)

Once you stop taking on new debt, you’re on your way to success — because you will get your old debt paid off by making regular (and ideally larger) payments to it.

Here are 4 ways to avoid taking on new debt:

1. Have at least a thousand dollar emergency fund. Emergencies (or more often, expenses we forgot to plan for that feel like emergencies) are common debt culprits. Give yourself a cushion, and you’ll have a ready alternative.
2. Plan, plan, plan. Everything mechanical or electronic that you own will need to be replaced someday — unless you can do without it completely. (Like a TV.) Plan for the replacement of the things you really don’t see how you can do without now, before they break down.
3. Be aware. Tracking your spending — even for brief periods — will show you what you’re actually doing with your money. You can make sure that you aren’t buying pizzas when you should be buying a new tire for your car.
4. Make like an anti-drug commercial from the 80s and “just say no”. Hold firm on your stance against borrowing money. No, you don’t need a new pair of pants when you don’t have the money for it. No, you don’t need to get your car repaired when you don’t have the cash. No, no, no. Find alternatives. They ARE out there.

Finally, keep in mind that while some of the methods for avoiding debt may seem a little…not fun, once you’re out of debt you’ll have more choices. In other words, you’ll have more money because you won’t be busy spending it on debt.

More money = fewer sacrifices.

In fact, facing up to that fact was what enabled me to get out of debt and get into better shape financially. Essentially, I stopped making excuses and realized that I was responsible.

My excuses went like this:

• There was an accident, so we had to replace the car and it really put us behind.
• We hadn’t had the van that long, so that’s why we still owed money when it randomly burned to the ground one day.
• A relative died and we had to go to the funeral, and that put us deeper in debt.
• I lost my job and had trouble finding a new one because of the economy.

Those all sort of sound like things that would be beyond my control, right?

After all, I didn’t control whether someone’s brake lights were out, make our van burst into flames, or control whether or not my relative died. And I couldn’t single-handedly control whether or not the company I worked for stayed in business.

But what about the things we COULD have controlled?

When it came to the accident, we could have been more alert and aware to try to prevent t. We could have had better insurance. We could have sued if it was the other party’s fault and they weren’t paying. We could have not replaced the car until we had the money for it.

When it came to the fire, we could have bought gap insurance so that if something happened to the van and the insurance wasn’t enough to pay off the loan, we wouldn’t be in the hole. (Or better yet, we could have NOT leased a van we couldn’t afford in the first place.)

When it came to the death, we could have stayed home from the funeral and sent flowers or a card instead. True, it would have been sad not to have gone, but would a loved one want you to go into debt for that?

When it came to the job loss, I could have had a large emergency fund or paid better attention to the writing on the wall and started my job hunt earlier. (And I actually did do both of those things, because I was starting to realize that I was the one who was responsible for my life.)

When you accept more of the blame, you also accept more of the ability to control your money.

And that’s a good thing.

It means you can make a positive difference in your own financial life instead of having things just “happen” to you.