When you experience personal debt, your main goal is to repay these debts. But what happens once you do?
Managing your life after debt is a crucial element in your debt experience. It will determine how financially secure your future is.
Here are the three steps to surviving life after debt.

Reflect
Don’t beat yourself up for ending up in debt. Sometimes, things happen in life that are out of your control. Whether it is because of external forces or internal circumstances, the best thing that you can do for yourself now is reflect and learn.
Think about why you ended up in debt, not to berate yourself, but to recognise the signs and factors that led to debt and take steps to prevent it from happening again.

Learn
Once you have identified why you went into debt, now is that time to learn from it.
For example, you may want to think about setting up and contributing regularly to an emergency account in the case of unexpected situations such as a death or illness in the family, loss of employment and more.
By reflecting and learning from your past mistakes, you are already setting yourself up for a financially brighter future.

Forgive yourself
This may be the hardest step to take. While you may be filled with regrets about what you did or didn’t do, it is important to forgive yourself.
Only then will you be able to truly move past this and pave the way for a better and more secure future.
If you are struggling with your debts and want free and confidential advice, please contact DFA on 1800 676 598. Our phone is toll-free and open 24-hours so there will always be someone available to speak to you.