There are a thousand ways to tackle a problem...
... and the way to tackle yours may be 1000 + 1
At one point in time I was staring down the barrel of $35,000 in debt. It was a mixture of credit cards, student loans and vehicle loans. That number doesn't seem to large compared to some of the more shocking debt loads people are carrying quite regularly. But when you're making $0, $35,000 looks the same as $100,000 in debt.
Thankfully, I found a decent paying job that appreciated my contributions and paid me, relatively, well. When I started to look at where to start paying down my debt, someone suggested Dave Ramsey's debt snowball method.
Simply put (to the best of my recollection) - take your highest interest debt and pay it down the fastest while making minimum payments on the rest of your debt. In theory this works great. Over time, you actually save yourself money. But everyone's situation is unique or may require more nuance.
One of the issues I had was a cash-flow problem. Between paying bills and living expenses, there was little wiggle room in my budget. But paying down the highest interest-rate bill would not always free up cash-flow to give myself breathing room. So, while following the debt snowball method, I would deviate early on. If there were low-hanging fruit with a higher monthly payment that I could knock out, I would take it. For example - my car payment was running around $400 per month. Even though it was not my highest interest rate, an extra $400 per month would give me enough space to hammer down on other debts a bit later.
Overall - I paid a bit more in interest, but it took the pain of being cash-strapped away much earlier than it would have otherwise.
At one point in time I was staring down the barrel of $35,000 in debt. It was a mixture of credit cards, student loans and vehicle loans. That number doesn't seem to large compared to some of the more shocking debt loads people are carrying quite regularly. But when you're making $0, $35,000 looks the same as $100,000 in debt.
Thankfully, I found a decent paying job that appreciated my contributions and paid me, relatively, well. When I started to look at where to start paying down my debt, someone suggested Dave Ramsey's debt snowball method.
Simply put (to the best of my recollection) - take your highest interest debt and pay it down the fastest while making minimum payments on the rest of your debt. In theory this works great. Over time, you actually save yourself money. But everyone's situation is unique or may require more nuance.
One of the issues I had was a cash-flow problem. Between paying bills and living expenses, there was little wiggle room in my budget. But paying down the highest interest-rate bill would not always free up cash-flow to give myself breathing room. So, while following the debt snowball method, I would deviate early on. If there were low-hanging fruit with a higher monthly payment that I could knock out, I would take it. For example - my car payment was running around $400 per month. Even though it was not my highest interest rate, an extra $400 per month would give me enough space to hammer down on other debts a bit later.
Overall - I paid a bit more in interest, but it took the pain of being cash-strapped away much earlier than it would have otherwise.
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