So you're already in debt. How do I get out of it? There's quite a few ways. But first, we've got to start with looking inwards. It's all about our habits and our mindset.

Being Aware of Your Habits

Step one is being aware of your habits. Understand why you're doing what you're doing. Remember in our earlier videos, we talked about tracking your spending? Planning where to spend? Essentially your budget. But if you look at your budget, you'll understand where your money goes and what you tend to spend on. All those little unnecessary or your reiterating expenses that you never realize you had. Step one is being aware of your habits.

Create a Repayment Plan

Step two is to create a repayment plan. What this means is look at your total mortgage, decide how much you're going to be paying every month, and if you can, increase that amount. You'll realize that once you start increasing your monthly repayments, your debt is cleared so much faster. Even if you can do 10% more each month, you'll be paying your loan that much faster. Create a repayment
plan.

Automate Your Bills

Step three, automate your bills. You have monthly bills, which happen every month. You have monthly repayments, which happen every month. Using today's world of digital technology, create sending instructions, use gyro, use recurring payments to make sure that you're paying all your bills automatically. The moment your money comes in, your salary comes in, whatever earnings you have on each month comes in, automatically it cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts into all the different bills that you have. Make sure it goes automatically out of sight, out of mind. And so you know, it's being paid automatically, which then, of course, avoids all the late charges or the finance charges. And whatever interest charges that you may attract.

Destroy Your Credit Cards

Step four, destroy your credit cards. If you know that your credit cards are one of your worst habits, you just take up and spend and spend and spend and spend, you don't feel it at all, take action. Take your cards, cut it up because you know, then you'll stop spending. Credit cards are one of the ways a lot of you get into debt without even knowing. We'll talk about interest rates in another video but step four, destroy your credit cards. Use debit cards or cash if you can.

Debt Consolidation Plan

Step five is a debt consolidation plan. For some people who have multiple loans from multiple banks or financial institutions and you're paying interest in all of them, it might be worth it to approach one particular financial institution or a bank and tell them, "Hey, I need some help. Can you put me on what we call a debt consolidation plan?" Now, what this does is they'll take all of the loans in all the different financial institutions or banks, they'll pay them off for you, package it into one, lower the interest rate and create a repayment plan for you. Now, be warned that debt consolidation plan will affect your credit score. We'll talk about credit scores in another video, but it will affect your credit scores. That's not a good thing. But it does help you to consolidate all of your loans into one at a lower interest rate and you come up with a plan with the bank to repay your loans.

Speak To a Debt Consultant

Step six, speak to a debt consultant. Debt consultants are people who are qualified, who know all about how debt works and all the different financial institutions and banks that are out there. They also know how to help you get out of debt in the quickest, least painful way possible. It can be as simple as financial coaching, or it can even help you go to a financial institution and talk about the consolidation plans, or some of them might even help you with other avenues that you might know. Of course, all these are legal. Make sure you get a debt consultant who is licensed and qualified.

So today we spoke about different ways you can get out of debt. Step one is, of course, being aware of your habits. Step two, create a repayment plan. So you can pay your bills on time, which goes to step three, automating your bills. Step four is destroy all your credit cards, if you have to. Step five, go on to a debt consolidation plan if necessary. Repeating this again, a debt consolidation plan will affect your credit rating so be mindful. Step six, speak to a debt consultant. A good debt consultant is qualified and licensed and they should be able to guide you through all the different steps to clear your debt. Remember, fees you pay to the debt consultant will save you so much more in the long run. So look at speaking to a debt consultant.

Leave us a comment below and tell us how else you think you can get out of debt. Share with us your stories and we'll be more than happy to speak to you. Let us know.