It is a known fact that most of the salaried and wage earning groups of people are finding it very difficult to balance their lives as far as income and expenses are concerned. The entire job scenario is very uncertain and gone are the days when people could join a company and aspire to retire from it with some decent retirement benefits. 

Layoffs, retrenchments and getting fired from jobs have become the order of the day. Added to this the rising cost of almost all things, essential and non essential, is putting further strain on the already stretched resources of many families. Consequently, many of them find no other alternative but to go in for borrowing and debts. While borrowing for productive purposes can be excused to a certain extent, borrowing for the purpose of running a family is a sure shot way to falling into serious debt! It is a fact that in America 1 out every 5 people found themselves in a whirlpool of debt trap from which they are finding it very difficult to extricate themselves.

There are some useful tips which could help a lot in preventing people from falling into debt. First and foremost, we should learn to be disciplined in our spending and borrowing habits. We should try and recall the old proverb which says that “we should learn to cut out clothes to suit our size”. Going overboard on spending habits would most certainly lead to overspending. This will result in more borrowings. This phenomenon, over a period of time, becomes a very vicious cycle of debt trap. Hence, even if we are to borrow money, we should think twice and satisfy ourselves that such borrowing is for a productive purpose. We should also learn the art of saving which really could help us in such difficult circumstances. We should learn to master the art of delayed gratification. If we want happiness tomorrow, we should be prepared to sacrifice some small things today.