Always Offer a Helping Hand
If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you’re experiencing (or have experienced) debt. Many Canadians have been there, and they all have different ways of getting out of it. There is the ever popular ostrich-with-its-head-in-the-sand approach… but we wouldn’t recommend it. Too… sandy. There’s the obsessive-lunatic-let-it-dominate-your-life approach, but that one’s a bit too involved for my tastes – so we recommend being conscious of your debt, without letting it control every minute of your day.
We already told you about the importance of debt-attitudes and creating a plan – so here is a 5minute exercise (that’s really easy to do!), that can help you get started on paying off debt and gaining back your freedom.
5 Minute Debt Relief
For the purposes of this article, we’re going to use some simple round numbers that help us explain the concept better. We know that real-world debt might not be so easy to calculate – so grab a calculator, or take off your socks and mitts.
Let’s pretend that you currently had $1200 in debt floating around. This could be credit card debt, student loans, bills from last summer’s circus camp… anything. In 5 minutes, you can turn that number (hard to think about) into an action plan (much easier to manage).
Take the amount of money that you owe and divide it by 12. That’s the amount you’d need to pay each month (excluding interest) to get rid of your debt in 1 year. In our example, that’s $100/month.
If you’ve done that and the number is too high for you, try 18 (1.5 years) or 24 (2 years). This little exercise just humanizes the DEBT into a few smaller, and easier to manage units. Again, we know this isn’t ground-breaking stuff… but what have you done to deal with debt in the last month? Anytime you get down and actually DO SOMETHING (even if it’s some calculations, or making your first payment) you’re on the right path.
All it took was a little bit of simple math and you put your debt into real terms and numbers. While it can be daunting at first, you’ve taken a lot of the fear out of it. This type of thinking has helped millions of Canadians change their thinking on debt and savings.
If you’re reading a blog right now, I’m sure you’ve got a spare five minutes. Go ahead and try this out for yourself and see if it makes a difference. Have your own strategies? Hit us up in the comments and let us know what worked for you!
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