This is part 3 of a 4 part series on getting out of debt quickly. Make sure that you read all four parts in order to get the most out of this sequence of hints on getting yourself or your family out of the debt trap.
Make sure that you are recording absolutely everything, including gifts that you give, early morning coffee runs, lunches out, even how much you put into the vending machine at work or at school. When you end up totaling all of the various columns up come the end of the month, you may be shocked at just how quickly everything added up for you.
Categorizing your expenses and purchases is going to help you to identify the weak points in the way that you are spending money. You may not initially have had any idea that you spend a total of $215 every month just on lunches out, for example. But now that you have made yourself aware of this issue, you can make a decision not to continue the habit, or you can find ways to cut down on your costs for better budgeting. You should be keeping track of all of the money that you are saving, and you should make sure to put it in a separate account that is earmarked for the purpose of paying debt down.
Step #5 - Now you are going to want to tackle the larger monthly bills that you are paying toward every month.
The larger bills that you may be paying toward every month may include your internet service, your utilities, your phone and other similar bills. What you can do here is to call each one of the providers for each of the services, and ask them if there is any possible way for you to lower the amount of money that you are paying every month.
For example, there may be unpublished cell phone plans that have fewer minutes for a lower price, and if you are not using all of your cell phone minutes every month, switching to a smaller plan with fewer features may make a significant difference on how much money you are paying every month. Imagine, cutting $10 to $20 off of your monthly bill could save you a couple hundred dollars every year. A good resource for this purpose is http://www.lowermybills.com.
You are also going to want to explore whether or not it would be possible for you to lower the interest rates you are carrying on some other types of debt besides the credit cards that we had you work on earlier. For example, check on current mortgage rates through http://www.hsh.com or your local newspaper, and find out what local lenders are currently offering in terms of interest rates.
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