GET OUT FROM YOUR DEBT
Every time you borrow money, you’re robing your future self – Nathan Morris
If you feel overwhelmed by debt, you’re not alone. Every 6 people out of 10 struggling by over debt. One of the biggest challenges of getting out of debt is knowing where to begin.
Having a specific method can help to get relived from over debt. Here are three strategies to pay off debt, especially debt with an interest rate higher than 5% the avalanche method where you pay off debt with the highest interest.
SNOWBALL METHOD
where you pay off the smallest balance first, and consolidation, where you combine your debt.
After the highest interest rate debt is paid off, you’ll apply those payments to debt with the next highest rate, and so on.We’ll walk through each method to help you determine which one may be right for you. While it may require some sacrifices, it is possible to dig yourself out of debt one step at a time.
Let’s say you have debt on four different credit cards.To start, write down all your outstanding balances and the interest rates on each. Based on these totals, if you only paid the minimum on each card, you might not be debt free for almost 12 years.
To get out from debt with the snowball method, you’ll pay the minimum of all your balances and put anything left toward the debt with the smallest balance first. So, in this example, you’d pay off the 1,300 debt first. It may seem financially unwise to pay off anything but the highest interest debt first, but with the snowball method, you’re able to pay off a higher portion of one of your balances with each payment.
AVALANCHE METHOD
The avalanche method will save you more money in interest payments than if you were to pay off lower interest debt first, so mathematically, the avalanche method is a better way to pay off debt.
If you’re able to put an extra Rs.500 per month toward this debt, the avalanche method could save you more than Rs.21,000 in interest compared to just paying the minimum. It’d also shorten the life of your debt to only three years. But for some, avalanches have to start somewhere maybe as a snowball.
With the avalanche method you’ll prioritize paying off the debt with the highest interest first. The idea is by focusing on the most expensive debt first, you’ll save money over time. For the other cards, pay the minimum every month, then put everything else you can toward paying off the highest interest rate card in this example, the one with the 22% interest rate.
Take that Rs. 13000 debt: a Rs.500 payment would pay off 38% of that account while Rs.500 toward the debt with the highest interest rate would only be 5% of that account balance. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that when subjects paid down a higher portion of a balance on their debt, they were more motivated to keep going. Though it’s not the most cost-efficient method, in the long run, it was more effective. Don’t underestimate the power of psychology.
BALANCE TRANSFER METHOD
The sense of accomplishment from completely paying off one balance can motivate you to stay disciplined with the others. A third method of debt repayment is consolidation. This is combining all your debt into one, so you make a single monthly payment, ideally, one with a lower interest rate than your existing accounts. existing debt. Another choice is a balance transfer, which means moving your balances onto a new credit card.
This may be a good idea if you’re able to open a new credit card that offers 0% interest on balance transfers. But typically, this 0% interest is only for a limited time, like a year or 18 months. So don’t transfer your balances unless you’re sure you can pay them off during this introductory period or if the new interest rate will be lower than your current combined interest rate.
In our example, if you combined everything into a 0% balance transfer for 12 months, you’d face payments of Rs.2,500 per month. That’s pretty steep, so make sure you’ll be able to handle that amount, or you’ll face interest at the end of the intro period. So, to review, avalanche saves money by paying debt with the highest interest rate first, snowball may maximize motivation by paying the smallest balance first, and consolidation may be useful if you can afford to combine all your debt into one payment.
There isn’t one right way to dig your way out of debt. Your numbers may be different than the ones we used in our example, which means the difference between total payoff could vary from one strategy to the next. The most important thing is to stop adding to the debt, determine exactly how much you owe, pay as much toward it as you can, and stick to it.
Don’t take too much debt. reduce our expenditure, think before act.
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