What are some tips to get out of debt?

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  1. Here are some tips to help you get out of debt: 1. Make a budget and stick to it. This will help you see where your money is going and where you can cut back. 2. Make a plan to pay off your debts. Start with the smallest debt first and work your way up. 3. Contact your creditors and try to negotiate lower interest rates or payment plans. 4. Consider consolidating your debts into one loan with a lower interest rate. 5. Make extra payments whenever possible to payoff your debt sooner.

  2. Total truth: outside of mortgage and students loans – I have neve been in debt. Now those are gone. We’re debt free outside of just monthly bills. Own our house, outright. How? Why? I always had a saving mentality and a certain frugal mentality. This isn’t being cheap. “cheap” is just a level of assholery. Like, the person who shows up to potluck with nothing but eats everyone else’s food. No, I’ve always opened the purse strings for family and friends. Saving and being frugal is just every day things that you can do that do not create unneeded expense. When gas was over $5.00 a gallon. I bought a scooter and commute to work on a scooter that gets 65 mpg. I don’t care if it’s goofy looking. It’s 65 mpg!!!! I have a guy in my department. He’s a 35 year old man with an adult professional’s pay, with spending habits of a 6 year old. He has no self-control and married someone like him. He is always in a bad way for money and I know what he makes. He has NO REASON to be in money problems. A former department associate once told me, “I used to run (go out) with him on weekends with him and his then girlfriend. After a month of that, I had to stop. I was tapped out. I couldn’t spend what they were spending. It was just too much.” People can put together a plan for getting out of debt and to do this or that, but if you don’t change your mentality, it probably won’t work. It’s about wanting to east steak once a week but realizing hamburgers will have to do.

  3. Work on increasing your income, whether that’s getting another job or working towards advancing at the position you’re already at. Make a budget where your expenses (including debt payments) are less than your income. Look at potentially consolidating your debts to a lower interest rate; if you have credit card debt, they tend to have extremely high interest rates, so try to get through those first.

  4. Turn the heat down. But a used car not new. Learn to do your own repairs. Don’t eat out. Budget. You don’t need all those streaming services. Take a look at what you actually use.

    Don’t get rid of the credit card. Treat it as for emergency use only.

    Pick cheap or free activities to do on a date

    Thrift stores.

  5. Create a budget, track your spending, and make a debt payoff plan. You can also try to negotiate with your creditors, consolidate your debt, or consider credit counseling.

  6. There are a lot of great tips here so I won’t repeat them but I’ll add one I don’t see. It’s actually rarely posted because it’s not something people like to hear.

    Cutting down on your spending is easy but there are limits to what can be cut. Increasing income is hard for obvious reasons. Eventually you have to consider that your lifestyle is just unsustainable. That means more radical change than just eating out less and turning down the heat. It often means moving back in with the family, getting a roommate, selling your car in favour of a bus pass, and generally doing things you don’t want to do. It might seem like regression but debt can cripple your future entirely. Far better a few years spent uncomfortable than a few decades lost to endless interest payments.

  7. Getting out of debt can be complicated and challenging, but the equation is simple: Pay your debt down faster than you accumulate it. Once you’re committed to doing that, you’ve got two ways to attack:

    1. Spend less money. Every dollar you don’t spend, you can throw at your debt.

    2. Make more money. Every extra dollar you earn, you can throw at your debt.

    The best way forward is to do both. Work a side job. Negotiate a raise. Stop eating out. Cut the credit cards in half. (DISCLAIMER: I want to acknowledge that some people are not in a position to make simple choices to balance their finances. Some people are busting their asses and saving every penny they can just to scrape by).

    Once you’re in a place where you’re throwing extra money at your debt, you can start being more targeted. If you’ve got the discipline for it, you should pay off your highest interest debt first, because you’ll spend less overall money in the long run. If you’re the type of person who needs to start with small victories to stay motivated, you could instead start with your smallest debt and work your way up.

    Stay disciplined and you can get out faster than you think. If you need a cheat day once in a while where you buy the concert tickets or get yourself a nice dinner, do it. Just stay the course. My wife and I had around six figures in student loan debt when we first graduated. We’d paid it off, saved for a wedding, and bought a house before we were thirty without crazy salaries (though I say again, we’re privileged to be college-educated and come from middle class families. I won’t pretend I know what the fuck I’m talking about when it comes to actually escaping poverty).

  8. I have been and is still in much debt from many years ago (from a fucked up marriage). Over the last year I have managed to get structure to my paying it down. So here are my personal snippets of advice:

    First, make an honest budget. Mine was a monthly budget, and it not only contained all my income and fixed expenses, creditors and otherwise, but a daily tally of how much my remaining balance is supposed to be for that day of the month. Like, say, I get XX money in on payday. I can then look at my budget and see there that on the 14th of every month, I am supposed to have YY money left in my account. My bills are of course written up here, on their due date, so they are autmatically tallied in. Like this, I never have to guess if the amount I have is enough to last me to my next payday. If I have less in my account than I should that day, I know I have to save a bit extra over the next few days until the budget and balance align again. If I have a bit more, well that’s good.

    This will not directly help paying back debt, but for me it was a huge mental load off my shoulder, just being able to see everything like that and know every in and out. It may even encourage you to cut some expenses that aren’t strictly necessary.

    Next I talked to each of the creditors. Engaged them with a written application asking for some debt relief and a payment plan. I attached my budget to show them how scrapped I was and other documentation to show, and suggested a monthly payment sum. It is important to remember that they are more interested in getting their money, and not interested in sending you into bankruptcy, since that mean they may not get money. A good solid application (don’t be afraid to emphasise how hard this is for you) and showing them you really want to pay, will often result in some cancellation of some debt, and a payment plan for the rest. I got that.

    In parallell with that I worked on refinancing my debt, i.e. collecting all debt into ONE lump sum with ONE bank. That took a long time and a few applications to different banks, but don’t give up. In the end I ended up with one debt collection creditor that I pay a fixed monthy sum to, and when I have paid that total sum thay have asked for, they will cancel the rest. This is then basically (from now on), an interest free loan. And another loan in a bank for the rest, with a much better interest rate. Having so consolidated my debt have taken another toll off my mental load and I also save several hundred dollars a month, compared to before.

    when you are in the hole it can and was a huge mental task to actually engage with the debt collectors, and anybody going though that have my uttermost sympathy! But you can do it and I really encourage you to start with an honest budget, it will be your starting pad for fixing things.

  9. Spend less, earn more, and prioritize paying off whatever debt has the highest interest rate to avoid accumulating even more.

  10. I used to buy a lot of things but I have cut back on spending. I only use my credit card for gas and that is only if I have a low amount of money in my checking account.

    I stopped buying coffee, so that’s saving me money. I don’t go shopping that much anymore. Every paycheck goes straight to my savings and checking. I have also made sure to pay off my credit card every month either on the day it is due or the day before. I also check my credit score every now and then and last time I checked it, it was 727.

  11. Assuming you are in the U.S.

    /r/PersonalFinance

    Investigate getting a loan to consolidate all your debts. Often the interest rate will be less.

    Make a budget, stick to it, and portion out some money every month to pay down your debt.

  12. 1. Don’t take on any new debt.

    2. Try to make extra payments on your smallest debt. Then when it’s paid off, take the money you were paying each month on that debt, and add it to the payment of the next-smallest debt. Keep doing this as you pay off each debt.

  13. Fake your death by drowning at sea and vanish from the place. If you are that clever you’ll figure out how and where.

  14. spend less, so when you see something you “must” have, dont buy it… do that for a few years your be out of debt

  15. Sacrifice…..sell shit you “want” but don’t need…..take on part time job…..quit making stupid purchases……credit consolidation loan…..!🤘

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