Since you cannot definitively determine that it is a patriotic duty to spend yourself deep into debt, and you can definitively determine that such conduct is personally harmful (preventing you from attaining your dreams of homesteading, perhaps), you should attempt to purge yourself of the notion that you have a duty to spend above your means. Once you have gotten beyond the notion that you must spend in order to be a good citizen, set your goals and dreams to paper. What do you really want from life? Is it really things that you want? Or is it a homesteading lifestyle? What will it take to get there? Analyze your spending habits and let go of your advertising-induced belief that you must have lots of things in order to buy your happiness: Repeat after me, "I cannot buy happiness." Make this your new mantra. True, it is an old adage that money cannot buy happiness, but unless you are living in a primitive, unadorned cabin, our consumer culture has probably convinced you on some subconscious level that money can buy happiness, and your spending habits are influenced by that belief, no matter how poor you are. Therefore, you have to work at rooting out this notion. This does not mean that the primitive, unadorned cabin has to be your goal. It does mean that you have to turn a critical eye to each of your consumer desires and determine if they are truly worth their cost to you of postponing your major life goal. Some expenditures will undoubtedly be worth it to you, but others will seem frivolous when held to that standard and will have less hold upon your imagination and desires, despite the hard work of Madison Avenue to convince you otherwise.
Turn your attention to where you can cut the fat from your spending. Do not say there is no fat: even Americans on welfare have far more conveniences and luxuries in comparison with villagers in many primitive (but well-fed) cultures. If you cannot see any fat to be cut, critically re-examine how you spend every penny and ask yourself if each expenditure was actually necessary. Look for ways to slash costs, and be creative about it.
As you free up money from your budget, work your way out of debt. Take the highest interest debt first and pay the extra money saved by frugality toward that debt, or pay off the second-highest interest debt if it is relatively small. Once the first debt is paid off, roll all of that extra money into paying the next highest interest debt, and continue this practice until you are debt free. At this point, take all of the money you have been using to pay your debts to put into savings toward your goals. My husband and I have done this for a number of years and have no consumer debt and a paid off mortgage.
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