Three Ways Out of Debt

When it comes down to it, you only have three options for getting out of debt. You can either increase your income, decrease your monthly expenses or reduce the amount you owe via the various debt relief options. There’s no other miraculous way to do it.

• Increase income
• Decrease monthly expenses
• Various Debt Relief Options

There’s a lot of written content regarding these first two things and they may seem redundant but they are well covered for good reason. When it comes down to brass tacks, reducing your expenses or increasing your income is the only traditional way to pay off debt quicker. It’s simple addition and subtraction, you can either add more income or you can subtract expenses. Otherwise, a debt relief program could help you to reduce the amount you owe.

When you enroll in a debt relief program you are in fact decreasing your monthly income and decreasing your liabilities owed via the debt reduction process. You aren’t earning more money to be able to pay these debts down with, you're simply reducing the amount you owe and then also saving money on top of that.

Ways to Increase Income

You can earn extra income by working on a side hustle or creating your own side hustle opportunity. You can also pick up a part time job or look towards doing some freelance work. Whatever the case may be, there are no shortages of ways to earn extra income, but sometimes we can all be a little lacking in creativity and imagination.

Side Hustle

First things first, be careful about side hustles, if you really enjoy doing them they could end up becoming your main hustle. This of course would be an enormous blessing and one I’m sure many people would find comfort in. However, you wouldn't be the first or the last

Sell Unwanted Items

We as consumers can accumulate a great deal of stuff over the years. It’s very easy to accumulate and not always that easiest thing to get rid of. However, the good thing is, sometimes this stuff is worth quite a bit of money. So, we are in fact, simultaneously organizing our life and creating more storage space and reducing clutter while also generating a little cash on the side. Win-Win.

Freelance

There are many freelance sites available that helps consumers get started on this path. Signing up is relatively straight forward and should allow consumers to get a footing in the areas they’d like to focus on. This varies based on skillset and expertise but everyone has something they can add value to.

Decrease Monthly Expenses

Decreasing monthly expenses isn’t always that easy but sometimes it’s what we have to do. If you clamp down and see where you can cut the fat from regarding your expenses, it'll be a great benefit to you.

Budgeting

Budgeting is going to be your best friend here. With the use of budgeting we are able to get a full picture of what’s happening in personal finances and how best to achieve our savings goal. If we want to reduce monthly expenditures, it’ll be near impossible to do that without having an established budget in place.

We can’t reduce expenses if we don’t know what they are. Therefore, budget, budget, budget.

Calling Service Providers

Another way to save money is to reach out to service providers and see how they can help you save money on your monthly bills.

You can try to renegotiate new payback terms with anyone that provides a monthly service you pay for. Whether that be your cell phone provider, your internet provider, your cable/tv provider, your electricity/utility/heat & cooking gas/waste & water provider, etc.

Some utilities have government approved programs that lower your bills, others you can simply reach out to ask for any discounts. If you’d like, you can explain that you’ve come under hard times and see what kind of programs they offer.

If you reach out to Con Edison or your electrical provider they might be able to help you lower your monthly bill. Ask them about possibly installing solar or ask if they have any off-peak savings opportunities or subsidies for families undergoing financial hardship.

Calling a cell phone provider and try to lower your bill based on how long you’ve been a loyal customer with the provider and explain that you could really use a program (if they have one) that would help lower bills for consumers.

Unsubscribed to certain services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Cable Tv, etc. See if there are any subscriptions services that you’re paying for that just aren’t being utilized.

Spending Less on Entertainment

You could also look to spend less on entertainment and leisure in the short term. This might mean taking a break from doing some of the things you love but that cost more money. When budgets are tight sometimes we need to strap down and be more conservative with our spending habits.

We won’t cover the debt relief options too much because they already been covered extensively in other blog posts. To see the various options available please visit our debt relief options page.

If you can do one of these things correctly you’ll be well on your way to paying off debt with a more aggressive time frame. You don’t have to be great at both things, but it’ll be a huge help and significantly expedite in your debt payoff process if you can master one of these skills you’ll be all the better for it. However, try to stick to your strong suit, if you’re a great saver focus on that initially and then look towards earning extra income if that doesn’t come naturally to you.

Otherwise, this might appear like an oversimplification of the process but that’s really it is. When you do one thing right, the rest of the pieces tend to fall in place.

These principals can be broken down into one easy distinguishable summation.

The more money you earn the more money you’ll have to pay down debt. The less expenses you have each money the more money you’ll have to go towards paying down debt. They are one in the same.