The Finance Blogger

We have a lot of monthly payments to make and as a result my monthly debt load is out of control. My wife and I would like some suggestions regarding what we can do about controlling our monthly payments so that we have some money left over at the end of the month. We have the usual utility payments, cell phones, cable, heating, and water. We own a house so we pay a mortgage and taxes. There are two car loans and then there are the credit cards. We have not been able to pay the balance in full on several cards and as a result we are paying a lot of interest on the unpaid balance. We have no money left at the end of the month for social activities, our savings etc. Please help.

My Monthly debt Load is out of Control – Tips

Without knowing what the actual numbers are e.g. income, all values of what the monthly payments are and how much is owed, we can only provide general suggestions. Readers can determine if any or all of these ideas apply to them and whether these solutions would contribute to getting a better handle on the monthly costs. Here is our list in no particular order:

• Consolidate your credit card debt into either a low-interest personal loan or on to a refinanced mortgage
• Pay off the credit card debt as quickly as possible
• Examine each utility payment to determine if reductions can be negotiated or fewer services subscribed to e.g. reduce water consumption, reduce services on CATV or mobile phone services
• Cut back on meals out
• Take your lunch to work
• Plan your trips to reduce the cost of gasoline
• Reduce to one vehicle
• Perform your own maintenance e.g. lawn care, snow clearing, window washing etc
• Cancel a trip and focus on paying off debt
• Cut back on trinkets
• Track all expenses and review them each week
• Classify all expenses as necessary or items that you want but do not need

Focus on the big-ticket items first to maximize your results. After that, you can decide if the smaller items are worthwhile to be considered. Once you have paid off some of your debt and freed up cash flow, this money can be used to reduce other debt items more quickly!

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.