Thursday, April 12, 2012

1000 Ways to Kill Your Debt


I absolutely agree with Jack Spirko, over at www.survivalpodcast.com debt is a cancer that you need to kill as soon as possible.

The next tool I recommend as your begin to get your financial house in order is www.mint.com 
Are they going to know everything about you? Yes. Are they going to have all your passwords in one place? Yes. Does that make me nervous? Absolutely. That being said, it is a 30 second log on process to see all of you accounts in one place. Better yet you will see real results as you focus on paying off your debt.

Try starting with the "Snowball Method" that Dave Ramsey espouses. I went with smallest balance to largest, because none of my interest rates were too crazy, but if you have a high interest card, feel free to start there! Just make sure you start somewhere with whichever piece of debt your heart desires to savagely kill first.

If you're in debt you should immediately stop using your credit cards, regardless of the rewards program that you feel loyal to. Odds are if you got in debt using that credit card, continuing to carry it in your wallet isn't going to make you more likely to get out of debt. Leave it at home. Oh, it's for an emergency? Fantastic, let's make it part of your Go Bag, this way - wrapping about 10 feet of duct tape around it. Now you can rest easy knowing that if you really do have an emergency you'll have both duct tape and a credit card. In a non-emergency situation I doubt too many of us would unwind the duct tape at Cabela's or Macy's for the ladies... 

Inside of Mint.com you'll find an overview page, that has your balance sheet. A list of transactions so that you can really see how much Starbucks, eating out, Apple music, etc. really costs you each month. There is also a pretty good budget tool inside. It takes about three months to really see progress, but one that net worth curve starts to curve in your favor it really does feel like progress.

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