Small Savings Debt Reduction
If you are extremely serious about getting out of debt, your debt
reduction plan should include some extreme budget cuts. You have
to maximize your funds available to throw at the debt problem.
This, of course is not for everyone, but if you find that you are
sending extra money each month to help pay down your debt and the
interest is still overpowering you, something must be done.
A lot of people want to reduce debt. They want to get out of the
hole that they put themselves in through student loans,
over-extending, not realizing how far they were down, or just
plain mismanagement, but they continue to live as if they have no
debt.
Maybe you know the type, or you are the type but do not see the
issues. These are the people who are sending in extra money on
their highest interest debt, wishing they could send even more,
while at the same time, they light another cigarette. Or maybe
they are sitting at their desk wondering what they could do to
save more money without noticing that all of the lights are on in
the house.
I was talking to a man who has been struggling with his debt for
three years now, and he admitted that I was right, but said that
he did not think that a smaller electric bill would help. He
thought that an extra few dollars each month would not really make
that much of a difference. He did not smoke and drank rarely so
could not eliminate those vices, but he was interested in my
suggestions that he was not getting extreme enough with his search
for ways to lower his spending.
Taking another look at his monthly budget, I saw that his natural
gas bill was higher than mine even though he has an electric
stove, and the weather is nice. Determining the cause of this
higher than average bill ended up saving him on multiple bills.
See he likes to take long, hot showers in the morning to start his
day, and another when he gets home from work because he has a job
where he gets his hands dirty. So eliminating that morning shower
and shortening the afternoon routine will save him on his gas
bill, his water bill, and since he has city sewage and pays by the
gallon, that bill as well. Now that he wakes up later since he
does not need that much time to get ready, he is saving the
electricity needed to light up his house before the sun comes up,
too.
After getting him to see the light, so to speak, he came up with a
few simple fixes of his own. He could walk to the park on the
weekends to see his Nephews play baseball, and could take a sports
bottle of water from home instead of buying 2 small bottles at the
game.
This sparked him to look for other small changes that he could
make to add to his new budget surpluses. He decided that he would
go to sleep half an hour earlier at night, this meant thirty
minutes less use of his television, the lights in the living room,
and also the unexpected bonus of no longer craving the milk and
cookies he had as a midnight snack. He made a few small changes
and says that he is still working on his debt, but he feels better
knowing that he is trying harder and also has the added benefit of
a more frugal lifestyle that he hopes to maintain after his debt
is paid off. He is still not sure how to react when I tell him
that there are more extreme measures that he can try, but I will
talk to him about that another time.
THIS CONTENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. THIS IS IN NO
WAY GIVING ANY LEGAL ADVICE OR REPRESENTATION. THE INFORMATION
CONTAINED HEREIN WAS COMPILED FROM VARIOUS ARTICLES. FOR ANY LEGAL
ADVICE OR REPRESENTATION SEEK YOUR OWN LEGAL COUNSEL.
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