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    Free and Clear: Master Your Money and Escape the Debt Trap
    Free and Clear: Master Your Money and Escape the Debt Trap
    Free and Clear: Master Your Money and Escape the Debt Trap
    Ebook62 pages46 minutes

    Free and Clear: Master Your Money and Escape the Debt Trap

    By Deborah Gorman

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    About this ebook

    "This is great. Straightforward, concise, simple, practical advice for anyone struggling with never having enough and trying to make ends meet from someone who has been there and done that." Doug G
    How to manage personal finances, pay off debt and avoid future indebtedness. Topics include finding your net worth, recording income and expenses, financial planning, how to save money, how to pay off debts, budgeting, how to avoid bankruptcy, spirituality of money. Includes resource guide and bibliography.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDeborah Gorman
    Release dateSep 17, 2009
    ISBN9781452316055
    Free and Clear: Master Your Money and Escape the Debt Trap
    Author

    Deborah Gorman

    Deborah is a holistic life coach and Reading Instruction Specialist who helps people to have a better quality of life. She is an entrepreneur who has started several businesses and is the author of Essentials of Starting Your Business, published in 2017 by Business Experts Press, and two previous books as well as numerous blogs. Prior to the advent of the Internet, she got her start in writing as a newspaper correspondent in Wisconsin.Deborah is a retired pastor who is originally from the Midwest, where she served congregations in Minnesota and Wisconsin for many years. She has an M Div degree from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.Deborah is most likely to be found on Linked In, Google+, and Smashwords.com.Deborah is a servant leader who is passionate about her faith, and active in her church. She is a mom and grandma to six grandchildren and currently makes her home in North Carolina. Deborah loves books, gardening, hiking and travel.

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      Book preview

      Free and Clear - Deborah Gorman

      Free and Clear:

      Master Your Money and Escape the Debt Trap

      Copyright 2015 Deborah Gorman, Revised Second Edition

      Published at Smashwords

      First Published by Deborah Gorman at Smashwords

      Free and Clear: Break the Debt Habit and Gain Financial Liberation, Copyright 2009

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter One: Finding Your Bottom Line

      Chapter Two: The Spending Trail—Where Does All Your Money Go?

      Chapter Three: Choices and Decisions

      Chapter Four: Evaluate Your Situation, and Chart Your Course

      Chapter Five: Pay Yourself First

      Chapter Six: One Step at a Time

      Chapter Seven: Crunch Time

      Chapter Eight: Complications and Trade Offs

      Chapter Nine: Get Help if You Need It

      Chapter Ten: Is Bankruptcy an Option?

      Chapter Eleven: The Courage to Change

      Chapter Twelve: The Unbroken Circle

      Chapter Thirteen: Gratitude – Thanksgiving

      Resources

      About Deborah Gorman

      Connect With Deborah Gorman

      Introduction

      We aren’t poor, we’re just broke.

      Like a hamster endlessly running on a spinning wheel, you’re going nowhere. Some months things seem to go along ok, but then an emergency comes along. You take a flat tire in to be fixed, and the mechanic informs you he’s not allowed to fix tires with so little tread left. But the other three tires aren’t much better. So you decide to buy a replacement set of four tires. Of course it is a necessity. Charging them to a credit card will add a couple hundred dollars to your balance on EZ Money Card, but as long as you can keep making your minimum monthly payments, it will work out.

      Yet as each new emergency piles another burden on top of your load, you find yourself living with a vague sense of uneasiness that things will never work out. At times you are so burdened with worry over money it’s hard to sleep. You never thought life could be so stressful, at least financially.

      If you’re constantly living from paycheck to paycheck, what would happen if your income were unexpectedly cut off for any reason? How would you manage to make the payments and your other living expenses?

      How did you get here? What can you do to regain a solid financial footing?

      Amazingly some of us have never stopped to consider those questions. As a pastor I knew the financial problems some parishioners faced. That experience also made me aware that money is an issue that is deeply private for most people. Indebtedness and financial insolvency carry much baggage and burden individuals with embarrassment, guilt and shame.

      I have counseled young couples preparing for marriage who had virtually all of their income committed to payments of various kinds, yet they had never considered what might happen if they suddenly suffered a reversal of fortune in the event of a job loss or other mishap. They simply assumed that would not happen.

      The financial melt down and economic recession that started in 2007 with the collapse of the real estate bubble brought that reality crashing down on millions of people.

      I have also experienced my own financial crisis times. I write from having known the deep pain and fear that comes with financial distress caused by being overextended, and worked my way out of it.

      I have been on the brink of foreclosure and flirted with bankruptcy from being overextended with credit card debt.

      When I finished graduate school I was heavily in debt, was turned down for credit cards, and unable to get a car loan. But I learned how to manage my money, and I was able to overcome my money troubles.

      After I worked through repayment of all of my student loans, I then achieved financial solvency with no debts and money saved for a rainy day and retirement.

      In this book I hope to share what I have learned from

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