Monday, August 17, 2009

Self-Help Your Way to Eliminate Debt


Many people find themselves in debt as the cost of housing, food and other essentials continues to escalate. You are not alone if you find yourself in debt. The answer to finding a solution for your debt problems is to get proper advice and to take action as soon as possible, with numerous debt solutions available nowadays.

1. Review your budget

You should first consider sitting down and reviewing your budget. Discuss as a family how you can cut costs and the best way to get your debt paid off. Look at where your money goes to and cut back on areas you have over-spent such as food, entertainment and personal grooming such as hair spa and manicure.

In the long run it is worth taking time to review your budget and keep tab on your expenses because coming up with simple debt solutions can help people to eliminate their debt and raise their credit rating.

2. Pay on time and in full.

It is advisable to pay your outstanding bill in full or if not, at least 50% of it. If you stick to the minimum payment, you will be affected by the interest charged to your next outstanding bill. People who are late in making payments are also hit with the high interest rates as well as penalties.

3. Get a second part-time job

For many people, the problem with their credit card debt is that they simply do not have any extra money after paying their monthly bills to pay off outstanding credit card bills. The outstanding credit card bill payment can easily lag behind due to a lack of income. For people that fall into this category, it may be a good idea to think about generating some part time income. Many people have turned their hobbies and talents into businesses and this is a great way to generate a little extra money. Skills such as web page design, editing, cooking and carpentering can be put to good use to make extra cash.

A garage sale of unused items in the house can also be organized to not only reduce clutter but also to get cash to pay up part of your debt.

4. Get help from available literature.

Start to do something about your debt problem by helping yourself through self-help debt management. Do a little research about credit card debt. Filing for bankruptcy should be the last resort. You can find internet articles as well as books or ebooks and audio CD that give great instructions about getting rid of credit card debt. Money saving techniques and budgeting spreadsheets available can help ease your credit debt problems.


5. Stick to your budget

Lastly, once you have managed to pay off all or part of your debt, you should try hard stick to your budgeting methods that work best for you. If you overspend or overuse your card again, it becomes a vicious cycle of debt that needs to be addressed again. Plug the leaks in your expenses before the problem worsens.

Debt elimination does not happen overnight and some people require a set payment and budgeting plan to help pay off their debt. Do your research thoroughly and find out which debt elimination method best suits you.

To find out more about credit card repair and budgeting, check out Theinformationmagazine

12 comments:

Chris Mullen said...

These are all great ideas and concepts, but the only factor not considered is discipline to follow through. You can budget all day, but if you do not follow, it is truly meaningless. I just finished college and only really started budgeting my last year. What a shame!

Technoman 2 said...

Sound advice, you are right of course fixing bad financial management that has gone on for months or years cannot be done overnight, it takes effort and discipline.

Anonymous said...

i like this post. you know that people think that getting out of debt and growing rich is some kind of magic hocus pocus but it is the normal things like what you have blogged about. Just a little asceticism and you are home free. this is a nice post.

http://kenyantykoon.wordpress.com/

Gandhi Anwar said...

Hm, great infos here. Good idea have you throw away here, and i thing its really helpfull to manage our debt. Thanks!

Shef said...

thanks for this useful information. it made very thing easy about debts.

ITIL change management

Shef said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shef said...

you have gave us very good information about this.

Credit union PA

Anonymous said...

Very useful post on Eliminate Debt.

Thanks,
karim - Positive thinking

Unknown said...

You're right! I need to try hard to stick to my budgeting methods. Also to keep track to where my money goes to and cut back on areas we've overspent. It's one big way to eliminate debt!




Best Debt Consolidation
www.totaldebtservices.com/

Anonymous said...

This blog has variety of great ideas to find a solution for your debt problems. These days, we all, one or the other time, finds our self circled with debt as the cost of housing, food and other essentials. Your ideas are definitely going to work in such a situation.
One can also visit - http://www.fintel.us/blog/ for other finance related issues.

Shannon said...

@ Chris: So very true.

It is not even half the battle thinking up ways to curtail one's spending. It's pretty easy to think up of a solution, but the problem is with the execution. It probably all boils down to discipline.

One sure tip: do not make any more debts just for purchases alone. Some like to use payday loans for such. Credit card usage isn't any different either. Don't spend money that you don't yet have.

Unknown said...

There is no doubt that whole idea is very good and useful to reduce the debt! I will try to follow these tips!
Finance Help Advice