Consolidating Your Credit Card Debt
Copyright 2005 MHG Consulting
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How Following These 8 Steps Can Make You Debt Free
Getting into Debt is easy.
When you leave school, you can start building a credit record
for yourself. The only way to do this is to go into Debt.
You think you can handle it: paying off your credit cards every
month, staying up to date with all your other monthly payments.
You're earning an income, living the high life and you can
handle anything that life throws at you.
Then Disaster Strikes - the car breaks down or someone in the
family gets ill, and you rapidly realize that you're getting
over your head. When the curve balls come your way, getting into
debt can sometimes be the only way to cope.
All to soon, the Money coming in just doesn't cover your monthly
expenses; you find yourself going deeper and deeper into debt
just to make ends meet. And everybody who was so nice about
giving you the credit in the first place, suddenly turns nasty
and starts making demands.
Nobody likes to find themselves in this situation, yet it
happens more often than you realize. It not only affects you
emotionaly; it has an impact on everybody around you as well.
Nobody like owing money and nobody likes losing sleep over Debt.
But what can you do to get out of the downward spiral - so often
a feeling of total despair hits you.
Eight Simple Step to get out of Debt.
Well here are 8 steps to actively follow to get the ball rolling
and help get you out of debt quicker than you think.
Step 1: The first thing you have to do is to admit to
yourself that there is a problem. It's amazing how many people
would rather ignore it, and just hope that it goes away. So,
admit it, just say: "I'm in big trouble". This
step actually forces you to start looking at your problems.
Step 2: Stop making Debt! Right Now.
Step 3: Create yourself a Budget for every month and
determine what you're spending where. Look at your income and
your expenses and determine how much you can spend on debt
repayments.
Step 4: Now comes the hard part. Make a list of all your
short-term debts and the full amount that is outstanding on each
and every one of them. These include your credit-cards, clothing
accounts and even the monthle contract with the video store.
Anything that you have to make a monthly payment on where you've
received credit. Don't worry about your big debts like your
Mortgage and Car Payments. We'll get to those later.
Step 5: Input all of these debts into a spreadsheet and
add them up. You'll find this a big eye opener.
Now, you have the real picture of what you truly owe. Only now
will you be able to actively start attacking your debts. Sort
your debts from the smallest debt to the
biggest debt. The key
is to start with paying the smallest debt off first and then the
next in line and so on.
Step 6: Now you need to determine how much extra you can
pay every month over and above what you are already paying in
monthly repayments. Look at your Budget that you created in Step
3 and see if you have a bit of extra money available from you
monthy income after all your expenses have been deducted. If you
do - great. If not, see where you can make cuts, such as luxury
items on your grocery bill. We're not looking for a big amount,
just that little extra.
Step 7: Start paying the extra money you created in Step
6 towards your smallest debt (in addition to the normal monthly
repayment) and continue doing this every month until it's paid
off. Once that smallest debt is paid off, you'll have some extra
money available. Don't spend it! Use he money freed up to
pay off the next debt in your list of debts (once again, in
addition to the normal monthly fees) until this one is also paid
off. What you have here is the snowball effect : Every time you
pay a debt off, you'll have bigger and bigger chunks of money
available to pay the next one off quickly
Step 8: You've paid off all your small debts and should
have quite a pile of extra cash available every month. I know
it's tempting to spend it, but the best place for that money to
go is into your Mortgage - So invest your money into your own
property. Why? Your mortgage is probably the biggest long term
debt you will ever sign up for. For every bit of extra cash you
pay into your bond in addition to your monthly payment, is
offset against the capital amount of the loan. The less capital
outstanding on your bond, the lower the monthly interest you
have to pay over. And the added benefit is that you'll pay the
mortgage loan of faster. It can make upto 3 or 5 years
difference. I'm not saying use all of it, but a big chunk of
that money needs to go there.
These eight steps will help you get out of debt pretty quickly -
It's NOT easy, and requires you to become disciplined with your
money. You can get out of the situation, but the only person who
can help you out of the hole is You.
Take control. Follow these 8 simple steps. You will be on your
way to become debt free in no time at all.