Value-Rite Appraisals Inc Blog

Many of my friends, prospects and clients have seen their debt rise, their home equity decrease, their savings/investments decrease, their credit scores worsen and their ability to earn more money decrease. Sounds like you or someone you know?

There is hope, even in these tough times. There are some simple steps that you can take to get your spending in control and make serious headway on your debt.

First you need to be determined to see change. You need to resolve to do whatever it takes to see your debt eliminated, AND you need a plan. Here are a few steps that you can take.

1) Vision - Write a paragraph or two describing how it feels today to be in your current situation. How did you get here. Were there obvious mistakes that you made? Write a couple more paragraphs about how you would feel to have that debt eliminated, your credit restored and extra money at the end of the month.

2) Budget - Write down your known expenses and try to get a handle on the cash that slips through your fingers. Be brutally honest about the discretionary expenses, you know, food, coffee, soft drinks, smokes, magazines..... this is an area that you will be able to reduce spending in to accelerate debt reduction.

3) Debt Spreadsheet - Get some graph paper or use an excell spreadsheet and add each debt that you have. These are the fixed expenses with a start and stop date. Also include credit cards, but not utilities, or things like that. make sure that you include the balance and the payment. Use the minimum payment, not the amount that you normally send.

4) Debt Reduction - Add up your monthly minimum debt payment (the total of all your minimum payments) and add any additional funds that you can allocate to pay your debt down. Each month pay the minimum due on all of your bills except one. On that one pay the extra amount. Keep doing that each month until you have paid of one of your bills. Next month you will have additional funds available to be applied to debt. Keep doing that until you are left with just your mortgage. Now you can start applying a good deal towards either savings or the principle on your home.

                     HAVE A GREAT 2009!!!