5 Simple Ways to Get Out of Debt

Sick of being weighed down by debt?

These five simple tips will help you eliminate your debt and ease your headache!

1. Monitor your finances

• Track income/expenditure (use this free budget planner spreadsheet)

• Plan your payments – schedule for 1st of month to make management easier

• Be conscious of spending – do you need that new [insert expensive item here!]?

• Leave bank cards at home if you can’t control yourself

2. Slash household bills

• Focus on big savings – eg:

• Gas/electric (could save you £100-200/year)

• Remortgage (more complicated but 1% reduction in rate could save up to £1000/yr)

• Use savings to pay off debt (saves interest)

• Got a gym membership? Cancel and workout from home for free!

• Consolidate? Check this debt consolidation calculator to see if you could save.

3. Credit card kung fu

• Making minimum payment on £3k credit card (14% interest) takes over 30 years to repay!

• Transfer balance to 0% interest card

• For multiple cards, pay min on 0%/low interest cards and overpay on highest interest rates

• Once high interest cards are clear, increase payments on 0% cards to blast debt

4. Claim some cash

• Check your tax code – millions of people pay too much

• Sold PPI? (Payment Protection Insurance) You can claim back £000s in + interest of 8%

• Wear a uniform? You can claim back cleaning/general maintenance costs for up to 6 years in arrears

• Check council tax band – almost 400k are wrong

5. Make more money!

• Get a second job (handyman etc – advertise locally)

• Freelance – use sites like elance.com to find jobs you can do from home i.e. writing/design etc

• Ebay still works – can also sell old CD’s on musicmagpie.co.uk

• Market research/mystery shopper companies pay £30-50 a day

End Result