Holiday Debt, Now what? The holidays are over, and the credit card bills are starting to come in the mail. What is the quickest and best way to pay off your holiday debt?
There are 4 steps to take to organize and pay off your debt in the shortest amount of time.
- The first one is the hardest one. Make a list of all your debt’s, balances, monthly payments, and interest rates.
- If you don’t already have one, create a budget to see how much you can afford to put towards paying off your debt faster. You need to be honest with what you can cut out of the budget to make payments larger than the minimum payment.
- Figure out which method you want to use to pay off the debt, there are two different methods; debt snowball and debt avalanche. The debt snowball method is when you start by paying off the smallest balance first and then rolling that payment over to the next smallest balance. This method is perfect for people who need to see results to help keep them motivated to stay the course. Debt avalanche goes after the highest interest rate, possibly saving you more money in interest. The choice is yours, and only you know what will help you to stick to the plan.
- Many people add a side job into their budget to help pay off bills faster, I know it means giving up free time but tell yourself it’s not forever just till you pay off the debt.
There is a great free website that can help you see how fast you can pay off your debt. If you got to www.powerpay.org and enter all your debt information and it will show you how the two different debt repayment plans will take you from in debt to debt free. It also allows you to print a debt repayment schedule for the fridge, you can see each month how much of your payment goes to the balance and how much to interest.
As always if you want to sit down and talk through creating a budget or a debt repayment plan, please contact your Veteran’s Personal Financial Counselor, Megan J Sather, 802-318-2507, megan.j.sather.ctr@army.mil