TIP #5 - Start Your Debt Snowball

Author

Quinn Oaks
April 08, 2023

Good morning!

Grab your doppio and enjoy.

This is tip #5 of nine tips I’m sharing over the next nine weeks. I hope you find something useful!

Until our recent mortgage, I was 100% debt-free.

And other than that mortgage, I still am.

I love being debt-free -

  1. I don’t owe anyone.

  2. I can pick up and go with nothing holding me back.

  3. I’m not paying off prior decisions with today’s dollars.

But I wasn't always debt-free, it was a decision and intense focus.

The journey from $35K in debt, rolling over credit card balances, and stressing about how to pay the monthly bills wasn’t easy, but it was totally worth it.

And the secret?

The debt snowball.

TIP #5 - Start Your Debt Snowball.

Regardless if you want to be completely debt-free or just want to feel free from credit card reminders, the debt snowball is a great psychological boost to financial freedom.

The basics of the debt snowball:

  1. List your debt in the order of balances (smallest debt to the largest).

  2. Continue to make your normal payments to all of the debt, except…

  3. Add an additional amount to the smallest balance. (Anything you can give - $15, $50, $100 a month.)

  4. As soon as this first/smallest balance is paid off, take the entire monthly payment you were making and add it to the next smallest debt.

  5. Continue until your debt is paid off.

You’ve created a systematic way to make larger payments to your debt - and you’ll love seeing how quickly this pays off your debt!

In the next 30 minutes…

Grab your favorite writing device and create your list of debt.

This will either be invigorating (because you’re taking action to conquer the debt), or extremely scary (because it’ll remind you of the mountain you’re about to climb).

But it’s worth it.

That’s it for your 30 minutes - but if you find a few extra minutes, start to figure out where to get the “extra” money to add to the smallest balance. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but start this month!

Remember, intentional money equals intentional life.

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I hope you all have an amazing week!

Quinn