Discipline

These people had discipline. Hearing their stories is very encouraging. (taken from FMF)

Here's a piece from MSN Money that details how some people paid off a huge amount of debt rather quickly. Let's start with some examples of what they did:

• The Gordons retired a $150,000 mortgage in just five years.
• Cards ($154,000 in debt) is on track to own his home free and clear later this year.
• Greg Cards of Newark, Del., was saddled with $154,000 in debt after his divorce.
• Wilkinson eliminated half of her [$49,000 credit card] debt in a year.
• Thompson paid off $8,000 in just nine months.

Now, how did they do it? Actually, it was rather simple:

• They made debt payoff a priority, although most continued to save for retirement as well.
• They kept their basic living expenses as low as possible.
• They looked for creative ways to speed up their debt repayment, and some took extra work.

Interesting set of steps, huh? Very similar to my three steps suggested in the Free Money Finance Guide to Getting Rich. And if they keep these habits going, these people will certainly become rich themselves -- or at least well-off.

I've said before that getting rich is rather a simple process. It's not easy, though, because it requires discipline. Getting out of debt is the same -- it involves only a few simple steps, but you have to be determined and disciplined to make it work.