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you will have a clear understanding of where your money comes from and where your money goes. Finding that
$200 will not be difficult, and your cashflow from new assets may create the extra money. In my experience, when
you list every single expenditure in your Financial Baseline, you will find a cut that doesn’t even come close to
forcing you to scrimp or sacrifice.
On the Financial Baseline of one of my clients, I discovered $600 a month spent on sushi. After several attempts
to defend this expenditure, she finally, reluctantly, painstakingly, made a decision to spend just $400 a month on
sushi. My guess is that when you honestly dig up your expenditures, you’ll discover a few sushi-like items that you
could, perhaps, not do away with altogether but cut down on a bit. For those of you still smoking, you can kill two
birds with one stone: take care of your health and your wealth by cutting out cigarettes.

Step 5. Debt Payments
Take the debt listed in the first spot of the priority payoff box and apply the $200 jump-start allocation to the
minimum payment listed with this debt. For example, if the minimum payment is $350, add the $200 for a new
monthly payment of $550. While you continue to pay the normal monthly minimum payments on all the other debts,
you will pay, in this example, $550 monthly on this specific debt until it is paid in full. When you’re finished paying
off the debt in the number one spot, you will take the amount you paid for those minimum monthly payments, plus
the jump-start allocation, in our example $550, and add this amount, $550, to the minimum payment on the debt in
the second slot. As you can see, the payments build and build as you drop on down the list of debts and your
capacity to pay off your debt accelerates incrementally. Though you will be uncomfortable with this process at first,
when you witness the speed at which you make progress, debt elimination will become as addictive as accumulating
the debt once was.
In this plan, it is vital that you commit to making the minimum payments, and also to adding the jump-start
allocation. That number, the jump-start allocation, must be specific and consistent. Additionally, you must have in
your mindset that as you pay off one debt, the minimum payments stay in this debt payment pool and contribute to
the next debt’s payments. That is the only way this will work. And it works wonderfully well. You will be amazed at
the speed with which you cross off each debt payment. And by the time you get to the one at the bottom, the one
with the highest factoring number, which in reality represents the months it should take to pay it based on the
original monthly payment, you’ll see that you’ll pay that debt off much faster than the factoring number indicated.
Making these commitments is tough to do on your own. I strongly recommend that you share your priority payoff
box with members of your team. At times, you’ll be tempted to use your credit cards or assume some additional
debt. If your close friends and advisors have been given permission to check in with you about your debt, they will
facilitate your process with a system of checks and balances against your old impulses.

Other Factors
As you make your way through the debt elimination process, you might also find ways to shrink some of the debt.
One way would be to study the personal and business Financial Baselines you’ll establish. Debt is a necessary part
of building a business, and in many cases, the interest is tax-deductible as an expense against your revenues. When
you shift some of your personal debt into your business Financial Baseline, you may discover that debt is in fact an
expense against your revenue. If that’s the case, that means your cash flow will increase. By reacquainting yourself
with your tax structure, you may take a first step to shrinking your debt by increasing the cash you can use to pay off
that debt. Additionally, you might consider talking to creditors and negotiating for lower interest payments. Most
creditors are open to communication and will work with you to restructure your debt in a positive, progressive
manner.

Back to Chuck’s Wealth Plan
“By ignoring my debt, I actually made it bigger,” Chuck said. “And now that my wealth is going up and my debt is
going down, I’m feeling in control of my financial situation, and I’m realizing just how much anxiety ignoring all
that debt was giving me.”
And once you start to manage and aggressively diminish your debt, you will find that you too will take a lot of
stress out of your life. Instead of constantly worrying about the money, the debt, and the credit cards, you will be
freed up to think about other important things, like the acceleration of a successful Wealth Cycle Process.
“I’m in control of my debt, instead of it being in control of me,” Chuck said. “And now that I’m in the driver’s