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Getting out of debt is one challenge; staying out of debt is another. Learn how practicing delayed gratification is the first step to becoming debt free.

Needs vs. Wants
How many times have you ventured into a store for a specific item and come out with several others? It’s a typical occurrence, and as much a part of the American experience as apple pie and muscle cars. Unfortunately typical doesn’t also mean affordable. These extra purchases add up and contribute to consumer debt much faster than you’d probably care to realize.

If you’re committed to a debt-free lifestyle, you must learn to separate your purchases into two categories: needs and wants. The needs are items that you must have right away—the bare necessities of life that help to ensure your existence. The wants are the items that you want to have right away, even if they aren’t essential.

Pay As You Go
Since a debt-free lifestyle requires that you only purchase as much as you are currently able to afford, the ability to distinguish between needs and wants becomes very important. After all, you don’t want to purchase several items from your list of wants only to find that you no longer have the money that’s required to purchase several of your needs.

Beware of Wants Posing As Needs
It’s fairly easy to identify milk as a need and a CD as a want, but not all purchases are so easy to label. For example, it might be easy to consider donuts as a need because they’re a food item, when in reality they’re just an extra lurking in the grocery store and therefore a want.