Guest post from Jamie of Medium Sized Family:
Why is getting out of debt so hard? What makes it easier to pay a company month after month than to just get mad and get out from under that mess?
Humans tend to be lazy — we take the easy way out more often than not.
In my opinion, it’s actually harder to stay in debt than it is to knuckle down for a short period and pay it off. However, when we compare our paycheck to our bills, it can seem too overwhelming.
Yes, you can fight against that laziness and turn a new leaf… but what if there was another way? What if you could use your neglect to your advantage?
That’s the strategy our family is using in our #yearofno (our family motto that’s helping us to pay down a big chunk of debt this year.)
Here are 3 ways you can be “lazy” and still pay off debt.
1. Automate Payments
I don’t set up automatic payments for everything — but many consistent bills can be set up for automatic payment. The less you have to remember to do, the better. You won’t miss a due date and add late fees.
The trash bill, home phone, mortgage, and other bills with regular costs month after month are great candidates for automatic payment.
2. Simplify Budgeting
The B-word can cause a lot of stress, but it doesn’t have to be so bad. Many websites make budgeting SO much simpler. Mint is a great free option, and You Need a Budget has excellent reviews.
I like using these sites, because I can see at-a-glance how our budget is going. The site can tell you if you’re spending more in a category than usual. You can also set goals for yourself and watch the bar line grow as you meet them. That’s a great incentive for nerds (as Dave Ramsey calls us money crunchers)!
3. Break Up Your Paycheck
Another trick I use to handle irregular bills is automatic withdrawals. Automatic withdrawals are similar to the automatic payments I mentioned above; however with automatic withdrawals, YOU take money from your own bank account and put it into a separate bank account — usually for the purpose of saving for something or paying off debt.
Simply open a new bank account and set up an automatic withdrawal from your main checking account on a certain day of each month.
I have a few different accounts that cover various expenses. For instance, I have one account set up just for paying propane bills in the winter. I have $25 per month sent to that account, no matter the weather, so there is always money to pay the propane bill when it comes. I love the peace of mind I get from having that money at the ready when the bill rolls in.
This last tip has made a huge difference for us in paying off debt.
One day, I got the idea to siphon off the part of my Hubby’s paycheck that I’d been using to pay off debt. I didn’t increase the amount we were paying on debt, just changed the way I looked at it.
I opened a new online checking account for this purpose. I did not get a debit card for this account. I didn’t want to have easy access to this money. The only job of this account is to pay off debt.
After that, it was just a matter of filling out a form at work to have that amount directly deposited into the new account each pay period.
If I absolutely had to, I could move this money to our savings account. And I’ve done that on rare occasions. But more often than not, it’s easier to find a way to get creative than to move that money. Because I’m lazy!
This simple move helped us focus that money on paying off debt as intended. No more wasting “extra money” on impulse buys or seemingly urgent things. It kicked our debt repayment into high gear.
All of these tips put together have given us some powerful tools in controlling our money.
If you’ve been struggling with laziness, maybe it’s time to stop the fight. Use that laziness to your advantage, and finally get ahead in your fight against debt!
Jamie Jeffers blogs at Medium Sized Family. There she gives practical tips for saving money and simplifying life. Follow her family as they dig out of debt in their #yearofno, and be sure to grab the free Identify and Destroy Your Budget Busters course!
Automating payments is a great tip if you can do it! Things are too tight for us to do that right now, I have to be hyper vigilant about making sure enough money is in the bank to cover bills. We will get there someday though! 🙂 I also love the idea of automating savings too!! Out of sight out of mind right? Great post Jamie! 🙂
When I took over the finances years back, after I stopped working to stay home with the kiddos, I set up grocery, mortgage and slush fund accounts and opened a “fun money” account for my hubby, too. It really has been key, though it did cause confusion in our marriage. On the 2nd or 3rd of the month, after all the money had been reallocated to the necessary account, my hubby would check in on the joint account and ask, “Where is all our money?”, and I would answer, “Gone!” because in my mind, even paying yourself (savings) means it’s spent. After a few months, he realized we were debt-free and had a comfortable balance forming and he finally understood.
Thanks for sharing your tips, Jamie! I especially like number 3. We don’t do it yet, but we have been thinking about it. You may have pushed me over the edge! 🙂
It’s so smart to automate payments. I love doing this! It also makes bill paying super easy.
Great tips!
These are very good tips 🙂 I like the break up the paycheck.
I like the idea of splitting up the paycheck automatically. It is so much easier to not spend money when you don’t see it! 😉
Thank you so much for posting this It is very inspiring. You have help inspire me in many different ways through the last four years! I finally jumped in and started my blog, I look at every day life in a whole new way and i have dreams and goals again. Not to mention we have a better idea how to get ourselves out of debt. That part we are still working on but now we feel more confident about saving money and knowing what we need to go to get where we want to be. I will forever be a loyal reader of all your post! Thank you again Crystal.
Love you!
Love Always,
Tessa
Those late payments can really put a hole in your budget. These are great ideas to help with that. I’m like you somethings I put on auto and some I don’t. That way I can wiggle just a little if I need to.
Great tips! I do all of these too and it helped us so much as we dug out of debt. When we first started budgeting, I would think I could pay our bills and use what was “leftover” to pay extra on debt. We didn’t make much progress until I made automatic extra debt payments that I only cancelled if there was an emergency.
These are all great tips! We are debt free besides our house and we have done all of these things. I love #3. We have what we call sinking funds for a lot of things in our savings account. We keep track of them on an excel spreadsheet. We have them for things like vacations, the water bill, property taxes, medical bills, etc, etc. Before we had this, we were always struggling to figure out how to pay for things. It is truly a life saver.