Your 5-minute guide to managing debt
Up to your ankles, hips or neck in debt? Try these two dozen tips to help get your finances back on track.
At some point in our lives, most of us have borrowed too much. If you're in over your head, don't despair. But make no mistake: You must learn to live on what you earn.
First, stop making excuses about why you're in debt. Don't blame the credit card companies or your parents. Put that energy into reducing your debt. (See the video "Solving money problems.")
Debt can be extremely stressful, so tell someone you're in financial trouble. If you can't talk to a family member or friend, contact an organization that deals with debt reduction, such as the nonprofit National Foundation for Credit Counseling.
Then get a handle on how big your problem is. You can start with MSN Money's Debt Evaluation Calculator, or you can sit down with pen and paper. When you have no idea how much you owe, simply establishing a number is a critical first step.
Don't avoid the B-word
The best way to start reducing debt is to set up a budget. It's not a punishment; it's a way of knowing exactly where your money goes. You'll need to add up your income and subtract your expenses, then set up a plan. (See MSN Money's Managing Your Budget Decision Center.)
Don't lie to yourself. Be honest about your spending habits and you'll end up with a more realistic budget.
Budget more than the minimum on credit card payments. Paying the minimum is better than nothing, but you wind up paying a lot more in interest as you chip away at the balances.
Start an emergency fund -- a savings account that should grow to at least three months of expenses. Even $10 a week can help if it means you don't have to visit a payday lender two months from now. Without an emergency fund, unexpected costs or loss of income can drive you deeper into debt. (See "Why you need $500 in the bank" and the video "Everyone needs an emergency fund.")
What's your plan?
Use your budget to help you plan your debt-reduction strategy. List all of your debts, from the highest interest rate to the lowest. Aggressively pay down the highest-rate balances while making on-time minimum payments on the others. Your budget will dictate how much you can devote to paying down your balances each month.
In addition, consider these tips:
If you have the money in savings, pay off what you can. The amount of savings income you get is usually dwarfed by interest rates you pay on your debts.
Use any extra cash -- bonuses, extra paychecks, lottery winnings -- to pay down debts.
Volunteer to work overtime, or get a second job.
If you can't earn more money, you'll need to spend less. Try these tips:
Eat at home when possible. Avoid buying lattes and fast food. (See "Huge debts, paid off fast.")
Go cash-only. After the bills are paid, allot yourself a certain amount of cash for gas, groceries, etc. When the cash is gone, the fun is done. (See "Living 'poor' and loving it.")
Forgo premium cable-TV channels and high-speed Internet service. Your public library typically not only offers free Wi-Fi but computer access as well.
Consolidation is a dangerous road
As you grapple with repayment, the temptation is great to borrow from Peter to pay Paul in one lump sum. You might be better off paying your debts bit by bit. (See "When paying off debt is a bad idea.")
Consider consolidating your loans only if you have the discipline to not use your credit cards. Consolidation means you take out one loan to cover all of your existing payments. If you do transfer a balance from a card, destroy that card so you won't be tempted to run up the balance again. (See "10 bad habits that lead to debt disaster.")
Don't use a home-equity loan to pay off credit card debt. Even if the home-equity rates are lower than your cards' interest rates, trouble looms if you run up your balances again.
Don't borrow from your 401k. The closer you get to retirement, the more you'll regret it. (See "Your money priorities, first to last.")
Skip credit-repair clinics that may charge you hundreds of dollars to fix your credit record.
Don't stretch to buy a house, even if everyone tells you it's OK. Buying too much house could mean giving up other things you want: vacations, eating out or college for your kids.
Video on MSN Money
Dump your credit cards
MSN Money's Liz Pulliam Weston says your best investment move now is paying off credit card debt.
Face up to your credit cards
Once you're out of debt, how can you stay that way? Of course, stick to your budget. In addition, figure out how to deal with credit cards, which likely got you into this mess in the first place.
Stop charging right now. (See "3 steps back to the sanity of cash.")
Cut up all but one of your cards, the one with the lowest interest rate. Use that card only for emergencies. (See "Your 5-minute guide to credit cards.")
If you continue to use your credit cards, pay in full every month and avoid interest charges altogether.
Pull your credit reports once a year and check them for errors. (See "How to get a credit report for free.")
Call your creditors and ask for lower rates.
Leave your credit cards at home. Shop with a list and buy only what's on the list; don't be tempted by sale items you don't need.
Don't use retail-store credit cards for the discounts. Chances are that card carries a high interest rate that you'll have to deal with if you don't pay off your balance each month.
When the collectors are knocking
If you've gotten in so deep that debt collectors are at the door, know your rights:
Debt collectors may not harass, oppress or abuse you or any third party they contact. (See "Don't ignore the debt collector.")
They may not falsely imply that they are government representatives or that you have committed a crime.
They may not tell you that you will be arrested if you do not pay your debts.
Whatever you do, don't give up. You didn't get into debt overnight, and you won't get out that quickly. Getting out of debt takes time and patience, but it pays big dividends down the road.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Revive your self and be debt free
Uncommon Sense
7 ways to radically cut your debt
When credit cards are sucking you down like quicksand, paying double or even triple the minimum payment won't cut it. Extreme debt calls for extreme measures.
By Mega clown ( ** since i dont wanna reveal real name so im usng some fucky names ** )
Editor's note: Columnist FUNKY CLOWN and six other women have come together online to strip away the myths surrounding money, lay bare their assets and liberate themselves from debt. Follow the quest for financial fabulousness of these "Women in Red" every second Monday in Dunleavey's column on MSN Money.
The other night I had a dream that I owed the dentist $15,000. It was quite a nightmare, and even after I woke up that petrified feeling stayed with me: Ill never get out from under this.
Unfortunately, that feeling is rooted in reality. Like a few of the Women in Red, I carry a lot of debt (did the group's name give it away?). And my husband does, as well -- a fact that neither one of us wanted to admit until recently.
Denial: Its the American Way
All the way through the first year of our marriage, we knew we each had a lot of debt. But it was under control! We were doing All The Right Things:
Paying triple the minimum payments, i.e. about $500 a month each
Had switched two-thirds of our balances to low-interest cards
Were using cash only, not credit
And we honestly believed that we could pay it all down -- without ever telling each other how much we owed. Until my editor twisted my arm, told me my marriage would be a sham if we couldnt communicate financially . . . and we finally told each other the truth.
What?Don't let retirement
sneak up on you.
Create a perfect plan.
Oh. About $24,000. No car loans, student-loan debt or even a large-appliance layaway plan. Its pure plastic.
Big debt is more common than ever
That may sound shocking, but super-high debt levels are becoming almost ubiquitous. As Im sure youve heard, the average person has between six and 10 credit cards; the average household carries about $8,000 in credit card debt, according to Cardweb.com. That little factoid is an average, which hides the fact that there are lots of people who pay off their credit card charges every month. For people who carry a balance, the average is considerably higher.
Financial coach J, author of Eliminate Your Debt Like a Pro," says that in his experience, people have grown used to having debt. And lots of it. I see many people who are comfortable carrying as much as $15,000 or $20,000 in debt, he says.
The trouble is when debt gets that high, standard debt-reduction methods like the ones my husband and I (and maybe you) were using simply dont work.
CHECK HERE WHAT MSN MONEY STAFF IS SAYING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• A bouncing baby can bust your budget
• Zen and the art of retirement planning
• Why buy in an overpriced housing market?
• 3 steps to slaying your money demons
• Climb out of your financial black hole
Here is a little quiz that can hepl you manage your debts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How much debt can you take?
There are a couple of red flags to watch out for when you think you may be carrying Extreme Debt:
If you're paying so much toward debt you're NOT saving for the future.
If you're rationalizing to yourself by switching the debt around to a lot of zero-interest cards -- as though that's doing anything.
My spouse and I just realized that both of these apply to us. So even making the huge payments that we were -- $800 to $1,000 a month combined -- we were barely making a dent in that sucker. Like throwing Triscuits down the gullet of a ravening beast.
Financial adviser and psychologist Sharon Rich, says that its important to gauge for yourself whether the amount of debt youre carrying is too much -- and one valuable barometer is time. A good debt calculator will tell you instantly how long it will take to pay down your debt using the minimum payment vs. a higher rate.
For example, $3,000 may or may not seem like a lot of debt, depending on your situation. If you can only make the bare minimum payment of $75 (calculated at 2.5% ), with an interest rate of 14% its going to take you 205 months and over $2,700 in interest to pay it back. If you can pay $300 a month, it will take you 11 months and $208 in interest.
Rich suggests using a five-year cutoff. If you cant pay back (the debt) in five years, you might want to consider other options, up to and including bankruptcy.
The fallacy of debt reduction
Why? Because heres the dirty little secret about debt: The longer you have it, the longer it lasts. Its the biggest Catch-22 of consumer debt, Rich says. You built up debt because you couldnt live on what you had. Now you still dont have enough to live on -- AND you have the additional expense of paying back the debt. Its like quicksand.
NEWS FLASH: If you really (and I mean really) want to get rid of debt -- so you can take all that cash youre donating to Mr. Plastic and put it toward your life for a change -- little spending cuts arent enough.
Money problems are primarily solved by lifestyle changes, says Rhode.
Drastic debt calls for drastic measures
Or, as I say these days, you gotta practice Extreme Debt Reduction. In other words, slashing the comfy way-of-life expenses we are all attached to. Here are the top four for the average American family, according to Rhode:
Where we live
What we drive
Where the kids go to school
Vacations, vices and other big-ticket indulgences (Can anyone forget Carrie Bradshaws $40,000 shoe collection on Sex and the City?)
My husband and I didnt want to change our way of life any more than you do. But there is nothing like the nasty taste of a thousand bucks a month going down the Visa toilet to change your mind. Fast.
7 ways to radically reduce debt
Reduce housing costs. You can move to a cheaper abode, or you can get a roommate. In either case, make sure the cost (of moving, say) doesnt outweigh the savings.
Husband and I decided to rent out our den to a roommate at $900 a month, which will give us almost $11,000 to put toward our debt over the next year. (Thats a New York rent, but still. Even ye in Omaha can bring in a chunk of change this way.)
Drop a car. Gas, maintenance, car payments -- imagine the money you could save if you gave up one household car, or found other ways to commute and run errands. A growing number of cities offer car-sharing programs (Zipcar and Flexcar) or even bicycles.
Get (another) job. You dont have to work nights and weekends forever, but if a part-time job gave you an extra $300 a month, thats $3,600 you can put toward debt this year.
We are each taking on extra work -- bartending for him, writing for me -- which we expect to net us an additional $5,000 we can put toward debt this year.
Quit your vice. Most of us dont live the Carrie Bradshaw life, but todays indulgences can add up fast. At $7 a pack for cigarettes in New York, giving up a pack-a-day habit will save you $2,550.Get MPs free newsletter by e-mail
Sign up to be notified whenever MP publishes a new article.
Live moderately. Shifting priorities, and locations, can help downsize your lifestyle.
Thanks to our new roomie, my spouse and I spend more time upstate -- and a lot less money as a result.
Let the kids go public. According to the Council for American Private Education, the average cost of private elementary and high school is about $4,689 a year. Whew. Public school is . . . free!
Tap your assets. If you have access to a nest egg, windfall or generous relatives, you might consider using that money to pay off interest-generating debt. Dont raid your 401(k) or other retirement funds, but you might want to consider selling other assets.
My husband has about $18,000 in stock that he can sell for a loss. Using part of that to pay off the $6,500 debt currently on a 16% interest card is like getting a 16% tax- and risk-free rate of return.
The relief we feel taking these extreme steps far outweighs the discomfort (which is only for a year anyway). Check it out: The roommate gives us $10,800; living outside New York City is a savings of $2,760; extra work, $5,000, for a total of $18,560 paid toward debt by next August. The remainder is what well take out of his nest egg. Our current monthly payment will buy us some breathing room and a start on a new emergency fund.
And voila! Provided we stick to our guns and stick to our plan, we will be debt-free at last.
7 ways to radically cut your debt
When credit cards are sucking you down like quicksand, paying double or even triple the minimum payment won't cut it. Extreme debt calls for extreme measures.
By Mega clown ( ** since i dont wanna reveal real name so im usng some fucky names ** )
Editor's note: Columnist FUNKY CLOWN and six other women have come together online to strip away the myths surrounding money, lay bare their assets and liberate themselves from debt. Follow the quest for financial fabulousness of these "Women in Red" every second Monday in Dunleavey's column on MSN Money.
The other night I had a dream that I owed the dentist $15,000. It was quite a nightmare, and even after I woke up that petrified feeling stayed with me: Ill never get out from under this.
Unfortunately, that feeling is rooted in reality. Like a few of the Women in Red, I carry a lot of debt (did the group's name give it away?). And my husband does, as well -- a fact that neither one of us wanted to admit until recently.
Denial: Its the American Way
All the way through the first year of our marriage, we knew we each had a lot of debt. But it was under control! We were doing All The Right Things:
Paying triple the minimum payments, i.e. about $500 a month each
Had switched two-thirds of our balances to low-interest cards
Were using cash only, not credit
And we honestly believed that we could pay it all down -- without ever telling each other how much we owed. Until my editor twisted my arm, told me my marriage would be a sham if we couldnt communicate financially . . . and we finally told each other the truth.
What?Don't let retirement
sneak up on you.
Create a perfect plan.
Oh. About $24,000. No car loans, student-loan debt or even a large-appliance layaway plan. Its pure plastic.
Big debt is more common than ever
That may sound shocking, but super-high debt levels are becoming almost ubiquitous. As Im sure youve heard, the average person has between six and 10 credit cards; the average household carries about $8,000 in credit card debt, according to Cardweb.com. That little factoid is an average, which hides the fact that there are lots of people who pay off their credit card charges every month. For people who carry a balance, the average is considerably higher.
Financial coach J, author of Eliminate Your Debt Like a Pro," says that in his experience, people have grown used to having debt. And lots of it. I see many people who are comfortable carrying as much as $15,000 or $20,000 in debt, he says.
The trouble is when debt gets that high, standard debt-reduction methods like the ones my husband and I (and maybe you) were using simply dont work.
CHECK HERE WHAT MSN MONEY STAFF IS SAYING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• A bouncing baby can bust your budget
• Zen and the art of retirement planning
• Why buy in an overpriced housing market?
• 3 steps to slaying your money demons
• Climb out of your financial black hole
Here is a little quiz that can hepl you manage your debts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How much debt can you take?
There are a couple of red flags to watch out for when you think you may be carrying Extreme Debt:
If you're paying so much toward debt you're NOT saving for the future.
If you're rationalizing to yourself by switching the debt around to a lot of zero-interest cards -- as though that's doing anything.
My spouse and I just realized that both of these apply to us. So even making the huge payments that we were -- $800 to $1,000 a month combined -- we were barely making a dent in that sucker. Like throwing Triscuits down the gullet of a ravening beast.
Financial adviser and psychologist Sharon Rich, says that its important to gauge for yourself whether the amount of debt youre carrying is too much -- and one valuable barometer is time. A good debt calculator will tell you instantly how long it will take to pay down your debt using the minimum payment vs. a higher rate.
For example, $3,000 may or may not seem like a lot of debt, depending on your situation. If you can only make the bare minimum payment of $75 (calculated at 2.5% ), with an interest rate of 14% its going to take you 205 months and over $2,700 in interest to pay it back. If you can pay $300 a month, it will take you 11 months and $208 in interest.
Rich suggests using a five-year cutoff. If you cant pay back (the debt) in five years, you might want to consider other options, up to and including bankruptcy.
The fallacy of debt reduction
Why? Because heres the dirty little secret about debt: The longer you have it, the longer it lasts. Its the biggest Catch-22 of consumer debt, Rich says. You built up debt because you couldnt live on what you had. Now you still dont have enough to live on -- AND you have the additional expense of paying back the debt. Its like quicksand.
NEWS FLASH: If you really (and I mean really) want to get rid of debt -- so you can take all that cash youre donating to Mr. Plastic and put it toward your life for a change -- little spending cuts arent enough.
Money problems are primarily solved by lifestyle changes, says Rhode.
Drastic debt calls for drastic measures
Or, as I say these days, you gotta practice Extreme Debt Reduction. In other words, slashing the comfy way-of-life expenses we are all attached to. Here are the top four for the average American family, according to Rhode:
Where we live
What we drive
Where the kids go to school
Vacations, vices and other big-ticket indulgences (Can anyone forget Carrie Bradshaws $40,000 shoe collection on Sex and the City?)
My husband and I didnt want to change our way of life any more than you do. But there is nothing like the nasty taste of a thousand bucks a month going down the Visa toilet to change your mind. Fast.
7 ways to radically reduce debt
Reduce housing costs. You can move to a cheaper abode, or you can get a roommate. In either case, make sure the cost (of moving, say) doesnt outweigh the savings.
Husband and I decided to rent out our den to a roommate at $900 a month, which will give us almost $11,000 to put toward our debt over the next year. (Thats a New York rent, but still. Even ye in Omaha can bring in a chunk of change this way.)
Drop a car. Gas, maintenance, car payments -- imagine the money you could save if you gave up one household car, or found other ways to commute and run errands. A growing number of cities offer car-sharing programs (Zipcar and Flexcar) or even bicycles.
Get (another) job. You dont have to work nights and weekends forever, but if a part-time job gave you an extra $300 a month, thats $3,600 you can put toward debt this year.
We are each taking on extra work -- bartending for him, writing for me -- which we expect to net us an additional $5,000 we can put toward debt this year.
Quit your vice. Most of us dont live the Carrie Bradshaw life, but todays indulgences can add up fast. At $7 a pack for cigarettes in New York, giving up a pack-a-day habit will save you $2,550.Get MPs free newsletter by e-mail
Sign up to be notified whenever MP publishes a new article.
Live moderately. Shifting priorities, and locations, can help downsize your lifestyle.
Thanks to our new roomie, my spouse and I spend more time upstate -- and a lot less money as a result.
Let the kids go public. According to the Council for American Private Education, the average cost of private elementary and high school is about $4,689 a year. Whew. Public school is . . . free!
Tap your assets. If you have access to a nest egg, windfall or generous relatives, you might consider using that money to pay off interest-generating debt. Dont raid your 401(k) or other retirement funds, but you might want to consider selling other assets.
My husband has about $18,000 in stock that he can sell for a loss. Using part of that to pay off the $6,500 debt currently on a 16% interest card is like getting a 16% tax- and risk-free rate of return.
The relief we feel taking these extreme steps far outweighs the discomfort (which is only for a year anyway). Check it out: The roommate gives us $10,800; living outside New York City is a savings of $2,760; extra work, $5,000, for a total of $18,560 paid toward debt by next August. The remainder is what well take out of his nest egg. Our current monthly payment will buy us some breathing room and a start on a new emergency fund.
And voila! Provided we stick to our guns and stick to our plan, we will be debt-free at last.
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