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Get out of debt paycheck by paycheck, step by step with the One Paycheck at a Time community. The following six steps should give you some motivation and momentum to get started.
The key success factor of the One Paycheck at a Time program is to mail a partial payment to your outstanding loan(s) on a weekly or bi-monthly schedule depending on your paycheck cycle. If you can only cover a credit card's minimum payment, make weekly installments of $25 instead of one $100 monthly payment. Depending upon your balance, the [interest] savings can reach $10 to $100 a month or more.
After reading the "Bank on It" article in the January issue of Woman's Day magazine, several One Paycheck at a Time readers wrote to request further instructions on how to make more frequent payments as most creditors only provide one payment coupon each month.
First, it is important to identify which creditors should be paid more frequently than once per month. Companies such as your telephone, electric, and cable providers require that full payments are due on a monthly basis. These companies do not tack on interest to balances due; therefore, you should continue to pay these fixed expenses on a monthly basis when they come due.
If you have loans or credit cards incurring interest on your outstanding balances, these are the creditors you should target for multiple payments. For those of you with creditors accruing interest on your outstanding balances, please find below six steps to accelerating the process of getting out of debt. For simplicity purposes, the step-by-step example of how to implement this program is based on a weekly paycheck cycle, but can be easily modified for a different pay cycle.
- Identify your creditors (such as those that have issued you credit cards, student loans, home equity loans, etc.,) that are adding interest to your outstanding balances each month. Don't include your mortgage holder as a creditor in this exercise due to the different nature of this type of loan (for more information, read about mortgages the One Paycheck at a Time book.)
- Determine the minimum weekly amount due to each creditor by dividing the monthly minimum payment by number of weeks in the month. For example, if the creditor requires a payment from you of $100 each month, you will be sending in $25 a week.
- Write your account number in the memo section of each weekly check.
- Copy the coupon your creditor provided, or write a note with each weekly partial payment so that there is no confusion regarding the account on which you are paying.
- Choose ONE of your creditors you would like to focus on to pay off -- this will be your primary target. Instead of sending a little bit of money to each individual creditor, send the weekly minimum payment to all of them, except your primary target. Send as much additional money as possible each week to your primary target. For example, if you can send an additional $10 per week, send it to only your primary target and pay the weekly minimum to your other creditors.
- When your primary target is successfully paid off, roll the weekly payments you were sending to this account into the next target you want to pay off.
By using these steps, you can save yourself countless time, grief and money! Don't fall prey to your creditors. Be smart. Your creditors are compounding interest throughout each billing cycle - multiple payments each month will help to keep interest at bay while you are paying off your debt.
For more information and help through this process, consider enrolling into the One Paycheck at a Time eTools if you haven't done so already. The program will help you design a debt reduction plan, do all of the calculations, and guide you - paycheck by paycheck -- toward reaching your goal.
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