by Barry Tadmore

Created on: April 23, 2010

If you’re like millions of other people, you have a lot of debt that won’t seem to go away.  No matter how much money you pay, the bills never seem to go away.  But there are a few tips to follow to pay your bills down more efficiently.  Here they are:

STAY ORGANIZED – If you were asked how much money you owed on each of your pieces of debt, would you know?  In order to pay your debt down efficiently, you need to know everything about your debt.  What is your balance?  What is your due date?  What is your minimum monthly payment?  Knowledge is power and if you use that knowledge to your advantage, you can gain a lot!

BECOME MORE ORGANIZED – So now you know what your balances are.  Now you need to sit down and write them all down along with their balances and interest rates.  For example: Car loan, 10,000 balance, 12.75%.  Mastercard, 4,000 balance, 16.9%.  VISA, 1,000 balance, 14.2%.  Once you list all of your debt, you can begin the next step:

AVOID LATE FEES – The best way to avoid late fees is to stay organized, as outlined above.  Late fees will add to your debt and make it even more difficult to pay off.  Keep paying the bills and avoid extra charges

STOP USING CREDIT CARDS – If you pay down $200 per month on a credit card only to charge $250 on that credit card during that same month, you’re not making any progress.  If you’re committed to paying down debt, you’ll need to be committed to only spending what you can afford and avoid adding more debt!

DEVELOP A PAYOFF GAMEPLAN – This is the most important step of all.  This is where you are going to decide how to pay off your bills.  You’ll stick to this plan until the very end, so you’ll need to be disciplined!

The best way to pay off debt is to try to eliminate the number of creditors you have.  In the above example, you have three creditors.  Imagine the minimum payments are as follows: Car loan: $300.  Mastercard: $120.  VISA: $40.  You’re scheduled to make $460 in minimum payments alone.  Do you have an extra $50 to pay towards your bills every month?  Then you need to utilize that extra cash and pay down debt!

But where do you apply the extra $50?  Do you pay an extra $20, $20, and $10 to each account?  Or just to one account?  The best thing you can do, again, is apply it to the account

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