I did have a phone consultation with a financial counselor in 2015 to get some basic advice because I was extremely stressed, not eating because I was afraid of spending money, not sleeping very well because I was just so filled with anxiety, it was a terrible time. My financial counselor did tell me (which seems to go without saying, but at the time I needed to hear it because I was so stressed I was not thinking clearly) that I needed to still eat properly, that not eating is not an ok way to pay off debt and that I needed to do a budget and cut out anything that wasn't a necessity and look for cheaper options for food/clothes/toiletries etc, have some little emergency fund and then throw all the extra leftover money at the debt.
So I bought most everything at the dollar store (food, cleaning supplies, water, toiletries), clothes I bought at Target. I drove to work and back and walked everywhere else.
Even during this time, I did put something, even if it was small, into savings so that I could continue to build that emergency fund. Every time I got paid, I would put SOMETHING into savings, even if it was only $5.
I moved all my debt to an interest free credit card (most creditors will have a promotional 0% APR for 12 months deal). When the promotion was about to end, I moved the balance to another interest free card.
Any time I got "extra" money (tax refund, birthday/Christmas money, cashback from credit card, the stimulus check we got a few months back, etc) I put a third of it (at least) toward my debt and a third into savings. Even if my grandma sent me $20 in a birthday card, I would put at least $6 toward my debt and $6 in savings. Oh, and I put my money in a high interest savings account (relatively high,around 0.5%).
And yes I still did use a credit card to pay for things, I picked a cashback credit card and used it like a debit card. I would never buy anything that I didn't have the money for in my checking account. And I would pay it immediately after using the credit card. For example, if I spent $35 at the grocery store, I would use my credit card then immediately pay off the $35 balance with my checking account. And I mean right when I got home, that day.
I chipped away and chipped away at it. Eventually I got it down to just under $6k. By that time (today) I had built up enough in savings that was able to just pay that $6k off. I know not everyone would be in that position to just have $6k+ in savings, in which case, I would simply keep chipping as and chipping away at it, the next big payment toward it would have been 1/3 of my tax refund.
Submitted November 10, 2020 at 08:03PM by Improprietease https://ift.tt/35jpn96
