Inspiring Yourself To Pay Off Debt

Ideas and tips to help you stay motivated and inspired to pay off debt.

Amortization Chart

If you want to "get inspired" to pay down your mortgage or car loan just tape an amortization chart on your fridge so you are constantly reminded how much your "paying" for the luxury of a loan.

By Reta

Homemade Graph

A simple home made graph - the bigger the better - is very motivating. Decide when you want to pay off your debt. Divide the amount by the number of months to get a monthly figure. Draw a graph with the amount on the left hand vertical axis, divided into monthly amounts. On the bottom horizontal axis write the months.

So if your debt is $2000 and you aim to have it paid off in a year you will have to pay minimum of $167 a month + interest. When you start put a black dot on the first month at $2000 and aim to save $167 + interest. If you make it put another dot on the next month on your goal amount line. If you don't make it put the dot in red and try harder the next month.

When you join the dots you should see a continuous downward trend, even if you don't make the full payment the line should still go down. You don't even have to nominate a set amount each month as long as the debt is falling. And you can set up your graph for fortnightly or weekly amounts.

I find this method very motivating - even if I have a bad month I don't feel I want to give up as I know I am heading in the right direction!

By Jo Bodey

Rewards for Paying Off Debt

We had to pay off a $100,000 business loan. Yikes! To motivate ourselves, we planned special dates each time we paid off $10,000. We went to different restaurants, each one better than the last. We started at McDonald's. By the end, we dined at a fine French restaurant!

By Sally