Debt Suggestions

Suggestions on how to get out of and stay out of debt

What does it take to pay off your credit card debt? Some people feel that they need to win Lotto to get ahead and pay off their credit card debt. We wish you luck, but you cannot depend on that. You should have a better more promising means which can deliver you out of credit card debt in a certain time frame.

If you only make a the minimum payment on your credit card each month, it is like giving the Credit Card Companies a residual income. They do nothing but tack on more interest and send you a new bill each month. At this rate you will never pay off your credit card debt plus your debt will snow ball.

The trick to paying off your credit cards is to get all of your credit payments into one and to lower the interest rate. Try to take all your debt and consolidate them into one affordable monthly payment. If you need help to get your credit card debt under control please feel free to get a no obligation quote today, at least give it a hearing.

Don’t spend more than you make! The key to getting out of debt is to not stay in it with the same bad habits. Credit cards are a huge convenience, however it’s much easier to swipe a card than to let go of a 20 dollar bill.

Commit to making a change, you’ve got to stay motivated.

If possible switch entirely to using cash, it’s a lot easier to stay motivated when you can physically see the money leaving your hand.

Sit down and do some math, figure out how much you owe, how much you make, and your “must have” living expenses.

Once you know how much you owe you can draw up a budget, including a schedule for repaying your debts. Be realistic and work out what you can afford to repay and still stay within your budget.

Be careful with daily spending…if you don’t pay attention to the need to conserve money you will just continue to prolong the problem.

Switch to another credit card company who’s offering no interest on balance transfers for 6 months. This is a good way to buy some time and save on that ever growing interest payment. Be careful though, make sure you read the fine print.

If you’re carrying a large debt, ($3000+) then consider a debt consolidation company. They would love to make money off you, use their greed to get your out of the hole. Shop around and look for the best offer, the first place you find won’t always be the best choice/offer.
Don’t borrow any more money or take on any more debts until you have repaid what you already owe.

A few neat web based budget tools:

indybudget.com
budgetpulse.com
budgetedge.com

Here are a few suggestions on ways to get out of general debt:

Review your living expenses, decide where you can cut some spending.

A change in lifestyle can be a simple and effective adjustment. I see friends who MUST have their Starbucks daily, so lets do some math:

I sometimes get a Vanilla Bean Venti size Cappuccino, it comes out to $4.something, so if we round down to $4 even we get $4 x 30 days in a month = $120/mo for something that you can live without. So given the fact I know these friends are spending around $75-$150 a month on Starbucks visits, I see that money spent as covering most power and water bills combined, if not more.

Is that change in lifestyle really going to kill you?

On a typical day at a local cafe near my office I see people spend anywhere from $7-$12 on lunch, and they have great food but it’s nothing they couldn’t live without. Yes, humans have to eat…but look at the math of buying lunch every day vs. making your own lunch.

$8 x 20 workdays = $160 a month to eat out, vs. roughly a third of that to buy the goods and make your own lunch every day. So there you have around $100 a month to put towards paying off that credit card. You also don’t have to totally cut yourself off from eating out, treat yourself to a nice lunch every Friday. You’re still saving a lot of money, and giving yourself a treat. If you happen to have one of those jobs with bad Monday’s switch your treat from Friday to Monday to make your day a bit better. Since you’re saving money, go ahead and splurge a little and treat yourself to a really nice lunch.

With some of the basic savings advice above the money you would save would easily give you a chance to double or triple a credit card payment. Try it for a month, it surely won’t cost you anything so see how much you save. Remembering the saying from my first grade teacher on math problems, “always do the easy problems first, then go back and work on the hard ones” the same rule can be applied to debt…pay off the small debts first, then go back and work on the larger debts. You’ll also feel better about the debt since one or two large debts hanging over your head is much better to manage than a lot of small ones driving you crazy.