4 Great Tools for Managing Your Debt

According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York in September last year, the total household debt was almost 13 trillion dollars, with credit card debt, auto loan debt, student loan debt and mortgage debt all rising fast, with no signs of slowing down in the next few years.

Beyond the statistic, the reality on ground is that many people and families are struggling under a large amount of debt that keeps increasing because they simply cannot manage it properly. If you’re in that situation or you know someone who is, here are four tools that can help anyone manage their debt properly and chart a plan out of it:

1. Your Phone

You know how you can call an online retailer or live chat them and ask that they match a price you found elsewhere? You can do the same for your credit cards. What you have to do is do some research and compare how much you’re paying as interest to what you could get if you transfer your balance elsewhere. Then, call your credit card provider and ask them for a better rate in the form of an IVA, explaining that you will have to move if you don’t get some consideration. It may not always work, but it often does, and the less you have to pay in interest, the more you’ll be able to pay toward eliminating your debt.

2. A Budgeting App

There are many financial management apps you can download and make use of on your phone for free or cheaply, whether you’re on the android or IOS platform. Get one of them and input your expected income, debt and how much you want to save, then divvy the rest up into a budget and let the app help you track how well you’re adhering to it. For best results, you’ll have to be committed enough to input all expenses and income regularly. If you do that though, you’ll be able to see a clear representation of your financial situation and where you need to make adjustments.

3. A Balance Transfer Card

It’s understandable that you’re wary about getting another credit card when a lot of your current debt was likely acquired through card spending, but many balance transfer cards have a benefit that can help you speed up the process of paying off your debt. Many of the best ones come with a promotional offer of 0% APR for a period that’s usually between 12 and 21 months. What this means is that you can use that period to aggressively pay off as much debt as you can without worrying about the interest.

4.  A Notes App

If you find the budgeting apps too complicated, you can simply make use of the notes app on your smartphone or computer to manually keep track of your income and expenses. You’ll need to manually calculate the figures, but some people have reported that this process actually helps them understand their debt even more, so it’s something you may want to try out just to see what works better for you.

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Created on May 26th 2018 06:31. Viewed 876 times.

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