by Simon Wright

Created on: February 19, 2009

Debt can be crushing, both to your finances and also to your morale. Additionally, a failure to meet your debt payments will affect your credit score rating which may make it impossible for you to get on the property ladder in later years. Most people, therefore, would agree that it's desirable to pay off debt. The difficult part, though, can be working out how to get out of the debt spiral. The good news, however, is that there are some basic and practical steps that you can take to alleviate your debt position and which, with a little discipline on your part, will set you on your way to paying off your debt.

Confronting the reality of your indebtedness:

The first step towards dealing with your debt is to recognise that you have a debt problem and to identify just how much you owe and across which types of debt it is spread. The main debt categories (or debt instruments) are credit cards, personal loans, overdraft and mortgage. It might seem very obvious to say that someone has to sit down and identify the debt that they have. However, for many people who get into debt, there is a reluctance to confront the stark reality of the financial mess that they have slid into. Hiding from a problem, though, never makes it go away.

Budgeting to identify how much you can repay:

You should also review your last three months bank statements, looking at your monthly incomings and outgoings. This should help you to identify whether there are any cost savings that you can achieve to increase the amount of money that you have available to pay off your debt. It should also give you an indication of the total monthly amount that you believe you have available for debt payments. There are often major cost savings that can be identified and one part of this is to review your utility bills. Switching to lower cost companies may shave a significant amount of money off your monthly bills.

Debt Prioritisation:

If you can afford to pay off all your debt in one go, then that is ideal. However, the reality for most will be that it will take a much longer period of time to get out of the red. The basic principle, though, is that you should pay off as much as you can possibly afford to. At the very least you will need to meet your mortgage payments (if you have a mortgage) as your mortgage will have been secured on your house.

Having ensured that the mortgage is covered, it's also important to be aware that most personal loans require a fixed monthly payment. With credit cards and overdrafts,

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>