Something which may help others

Graham_Devon

This is just a personal tip that went down quite well in another thread.

I have debt, and I didn't like the 27,000 figure when I originally started out on my way to debt freedom. So instead of looking at it as 27,000, and chucking £100 at it to make it £26,900 (not good figures here, 26 sounds better than 27!!) I worked on it a different way.

I made it 270 £100 payments. This, although still looking harsh, didnt to me, seem quite so harsh.

Everytime I paid off £100 I would knock a number off a sheet of A4 paper which I had wrote the number 270 - 170 on in columns.

So, not only would the number go down...270, 269, 268 and so on I would also be making markings and working my way down a column. So I had two marks to hit, 260 and also the end of the column on the sheet of paper.

I obviously wasn't paying off £100 each time, so would say pay £60 off, £70 the next time, knock off 1 of the numbers on the sheet but make a note of the remaining payment to knock off another number, so would in this case, put £70 next to the number. I found this made me more determined to pay that £70 off, as I wanted to A) knock off another number and get further down the first column.

For this exercise, I didnt work with intrest, so number do become a bit off in the end. But also, any payments which had to be made at the end of the month, didnt include in my tally, as those are the ones that usually are paying off the intrest. So the numbers were off, but in a good way, i.e. the number was bigger, the debt smaller.

I'm now down to 113 payments and it seems very easy when I put it that way, it's still however £11,300!

The best part was when I started a new sheet of paper with my new number. Because I had not been taking proper payents into account, only surplus payments, I knocked off 17 numbers! :T

Anyway, just thought I would share the tip as it works for me, and seeing 113 instead of £11,300 looks better to me personally, may not for you though!

It really does spur you on though when your near the end of another column of your printer numbers on the sheet. Best of all, it's just a load of numbers on a sheet, no one knows what it is, there are no £ marks, and if you write next to it, you just put say 20 instead of £20 to make up the £100 payment. So at worst, you look a bit sad with some numbers crossed out on a sheet if anyone comes across it!

My new sheet actually finishes at 30...I reckon, because of the normal payments, I will be about 10 payments away when I get to the end of the sheet, not 30, which spurs me on even more, but get ahead of yourself and the number will be bigger!

Hope it helps someone anyway! :beer:

kathfisch

That's a good system for making the total and the job of repaying it seem a bit more manageable!! All the little bits add up don't they?!

Graham_Devon

kathfisch wrote:

That's a good system for making the total and the job of repaying it seem a bit more manageable!! All the little bits add up don't they?!

They certainly do, especially when your actually going out of your way to add them up to be able to draw a line through a number!

Sounds extremely sad!

lazy&indebt

That's a great tip! Thank you. It's always good to hear new ways of getting yourself motivated!

shayshay

you could also try something similarb which people use when saving or trying to hit a target. I had a colleague who wanted a top of the range car, he got a picture of it and gridded it up into about 200 squares and with each car he sold would save £100 for the car and mark off a box which meant ne knew where he was target wise and how much he had saved. But like your idea its visual and as much as the target may be quite high, once you see it going down then it becomes a stimulant as opposed to a chain around your neck.

Graham_Devon

Well the scary thing is, it took me 2 years to get to the end of the sheet (these are purely overpayments).

If I hadn't have made those overpayments, I would have, in 2 years, only paid off £1700 of the total. In reality, because of the overpayments, it was nearer 13k that I had paid off.

That £1700 would have been even less over 2 years, as the intrest would have been higher each month as the balance would have stayed high.

Scary when you look at it that way.

Graham_Devon

Like the car idea!

You could use the same theory for £10 payments if you liked and wanted to see the numbers go down quicker, or if you do lots of smaller over payments. Just started at 2700 and work your way down, you'll finish sheets quicker and mark more often.

Don't start at 2700 though based on £10 payments if you have a debt of 5k!

GingerSte

Graham,

You could also look at it like this.

You now owe £11,300
You did owe £27,000

You're now 58% on your way to paying off your debt. You've got less to pay off now than you've already paid. I think that in itself is worth congrats! :beer: :beer:

Graham_Devon

LOL well yes, but I have sacrificed lots of stuff to get here. Getting bored to be honest! Could easily go and splash out instead of sending £100 here and there through the internet!

justruth

I find that setting a small target then rewarding yourself in some way helps keep you motivated, ie, when I was in debt before, when I paid off one credit card I would treat myself to a night out with what would have been that months repayment. The next month obviously all that money went on the debt. You could apply it here so when you come to the end of the sheet you have a budget to treat yourself with.

little_miss_thrifty

I have done something similar to Graham's idea for paying chunks off the mortgage - the minimum we can pay in any one time is £500, and it will take alot of effort to get that amount, so i have marked on the calendar a big £500, and any pennies or pounds we get each day are added up then subtracted from the 500; so we are counting down to a 0 balance...don't ask me why, but i get more motivated counting down than adding up to a target!
By the way, £487.96 to go!!!!:T