How To Pay Off Your Holiday Debt

Everyone knows that once November rolls around that we can start to look at our checkbooks and see money disappearing. Main cause of the money being gone is due to the holiday spending. Extra money that we once had is now being used to buy extra food for dinner parties, presents that have to be wrapped under the tree and family outings that consists of light sight seeing. All of these things really do add up and only being human we do not know how to stop spending money that we do not have. How do we come up with the money for these things when we have broke our checking account down? We start to use credit cards, take out loans or even better we borrow from other family members. Whatever the cause is our holiday spending has put a big damper on the new year and now 2011 is looking pretty broke. However, I have five great tips for you that will help you pay off your holiday bills. No, they are not easy, and they are not going to be any fun while doing so, but they are manageable and if you stick with them, maybe before 2012 hits you will be out of debt!

Tip 1
Stop spending! If you want to pay off debt you need to spending the money that is going to save you money. The easiest way to save money is to first take a look at all your monthly bills. It is time to consolidate these bills to a lower monthly cost for you. For instance, take your cable bill. If you are currently paying $120.00 a month to the cable company, simply call your local cable company up and tell them you are thinking about switching to a satellite service and you would like to know what they can do for you to make you want to stay with their company. Ninety percent of the time the cable company will either lower your monthly bill to 20% less a month or possibly give you one to three months free. If they do either one of these. Take half the money you save and place it in a savings account. Take the other half of the money and pay on the credit card you used over the holiday season.

Tip 2
Use your paycheck to help pay off your holiday debt. I understand that most of us hate taking our extra cash to pay off debt, but reality is, if you want your debt to be paid off, then you are going to have to use your paycheck each week to pay a little off at a time. You do not have to use your whole paycheck, not even half. Take 10% of what your paycheck is and place that money into a savings account. Within a three month time spam should be able to save up enough money that has doubled your monthly minimum payment for the credit card you used. Keep doing this every three months and before long you will have your card paid off.

Tip 3
It is yard sale time. Okay so you bought all these new items this past holiday and not the old things your kids once played with are pushed back to the back of the closet. Why not sell these things and get yourself some extra cash. I understand that many of you may live in a place where having an outdoor yard sale might not be weather friendly so if you could find a place indoors to have one then you are in business. If you also live in an area where yard sales do not do a lot of business then I suggest you get together with a local group that is also suffering from having holiday debt to do a big yard sale together and offer bake goods and food plates as well for extra cash.

Tip 4
EBay will never go out of style. More and more people are using eBay these days due to rising cost in merchandise in the stores. If you want to sell some of your non used items on there, it will gather you money to pay off your debt. If you have a hot item that is really worth some cash, then this is the time to get rid of it. I know eirlooms are never replaceable, however not loosing your home and putting food on the table tends to trump any thing your grandma passed down to you.

Tip 5
Talk to your local bank. If your holiday debt is a substantial amount then you may want to consider talking to a loan officer at the bank to see how much they can offer you at a low interest rate. If you are looking at two, three or even more credit cards that are close to the credit line and you are paying over 20% interest you may benefit from a personal loan or debt consolidation loan that could possibly only around 5% interest.

If you stick to your guns and cut corners anyway you possibly can, eventually your holiday debt will be paid off. The trick of the trade is to watch yourself next year and do not allow you to get into this financial mess all over again.