This blog post is part of the Pay Down My Debt (PDMD) blog tour, sponsored by US Equity Advantage. PDMD is a solution that accelerates debt payoff and helps consumers monitor their credit and make smarter purchasing decisions. If you’re looking to pay off debt find out how they can help.
According to the Motley Fool, the average American family has $7,630 in credit card debt, $11,244 in student loans, $8,163 in car loans, and $70,322 on a mortgage.
However, before you think the above amounts seem low, these figures include those who don’t have any debt. So, for example, when you only factor in those who actually have a credit card balance, the average amount shoots up to over $15,000.
As you can see, the average person has a lot of debt.
Debt can lead to a person feeling stuck, stressed out, continuing to pile on their debt, and more.
So, I’m sure you finally want to pay off your debt.
Related articles:
- What To Do After You Pay Off Debt
- How to Pay Off Student Loans Fast
- How To Make Extra Money in 2017
- Things You May Feel When Paying Off Debt
- How I Paid Off $40,000 In Student Loans in 7 Months
Here’s how to start paying off your debt.
Cut your spending.
Finding expenses to cut from your budget may help you live a happier life, retire earlier, save more money for the things you value in life, and also PAY OFF DEBT!
Even if you can only cut $50 or $100 out of your expenses each month, that is $50 or $100 more than you have to put towards your debt. Anything is better than nothing, as you’ll be closer to paying off your debt and reaching financial freedom.
Some of the things that you can do it order to cut your spending include:
- Lower your cell phone bill
- Stop paying for cable
- Stop eating out
- Cancel all memberships and subscriptions
- Find a roommate
And more!
Seek help.
Sometimes paying off your debt may seem impossible. This is where getting help comes into play.
The Pay Down My Debt service can help you to pay off your debt faster. Here’s a quote from their website about who they are:
Pay Down My Debt is not a financial institution and does not consolidate your debt. We are also not a debt management program. We simply apply smart financial strategies – and then automate them – to reduce your outstanding balances far faster than would normally happen. We do all this without disrupting your current borrowing relationships, or incurring additional lending fees. It’s the easy solution! We help customers reach their financial goals faster through payment plans to accelerate their loan payoff, ultimately saving money in costly interest, staying within their budget and building valuable equity. We are not a lender. Think of us as a personal loan advocate, working on our customers’ behalf to ensure their accelerated payments are being paid on time and applied in the way that benefits them the most. Since 2003, the parent company of Pay Down My Debt has transmitted more than $1.5 billion in payments on their behalf safely and securely — collectively, saving customers millions of dollars.
With the Pay Down My Debt service, “you can set up a manageable strategy to pay off your debts (mortgage, auto, student loan etc) faster in a way that saves big over the long haul without changing your lifestyle drastically.”
And, you can easily get started with their service!
All you do is:
- Select the loans and/or bills in order to enroll in the service.
- Simply decide on a debit schedule – whether it be weekly, biweekly, bimonthly, or monthly.
- After you enroll your loan like you did in Step 1 above as well as set up your payment schedule with the Pay Down My Debt service, you will have complete visibility into your early pay off tracking, your payment schedule, the transaction history that you have, and your adjusted amortization schedule.
So, if you’re needing a little extra nudge in order to finally pay off your debt, then you may want to look into the Pay Down My Debt service.
Find ways to make extra money.
There are many ways to learn how to make extra income.
Paying off your debt can allow you to put more money towards your debt so that you can pay it off sooner.
And, before you say that you have no time to make extra money, I just want to tell you that you’re probably not being smart with your time. While, yes, there are some people who may be 100% busy, the average person loses time all throughout the week.
The average person watches over 30 hours of TV a week, spends over 10 hours a week on social media, and more.
This is all time that you could be spending towards making extra money!
In fact, because of extra income and my blog, I was able to pay off $38,000 in student loans within 7 months, I was able to leave my day job in order to pursue my passion, travel full-time, and more!
As you can see, learning how to make extra money completely changed my life.
Do you have debt? What are you doing in order to pay off your debt?
Chonce says
Finding extra money and side hustling were one of the BEST decisions I’ve made to help pay off debt. Thanks for the great tips!
Bryan says
TV is one of the things that really kills me. I’ve gotten so much better at cutting down on it, generally only for 30 minutes as I fall asleep, but even still I find myself drawn to watching an extra episode (or 3!) of Game of Thrones.
Lindsey Mozgai says
Extra money never hurts when trying to chip away at your debt! Even $100 a month can make a difference.
The Giving Budget says
It’s amazing what money can be put toward debt when you cut things out you really don’t need for the time being.
Often times I have found myself thinking you know what I really could go without my massive Comcast bill. So I decided to cut out for the rest of the year at least anything that revolved around optional spending.
Comcast, extra phone plan, extra investments, my personal spending. And place it all toward the little remaining debt I have! I found a total of $1,600 a month I could throw at debt If I was willing to live a slightly uncomfortable life for the next 8 months!
This would make me debt free other than my house! And I bet I enjoy my life even more!
Beth @ The Money Pixie says
You’re right. Paying off debt is so important to living a stress-free life. I paid off $7,000 in credit card debt that I accumulated after college in a few months. (I went a little crazy on the credit cards after I got a real job.)
I can’t tell you how much better I felt without the debt, and it really wasn’t that difficult to get rid of once I made the decision to do so.