Monetary Relief: How to Manage and Mitigate Mounting Debt

If you have debt mounting up, it’s important to get it under control as soon as possible. Waiting around will only make the situation worse, costing you money from the interest you’re paying and potentially bringing down your credit score. Here are steps you can take to manage and pay off your debt.

Start with Your Budget

Debt is typically caused by overspending, which means your first move should be making a budget with your monthly income and expenses. This can help you pinpoint where your money has been going and understand what you need to change.

Cut All Your Unnecessary Expenses

When you have a large amount of debt, you should keep your spending to a minimum until you’ve paid it off or at least until you’ve eliminated high-interest debt, such as your credit card balances. 



Go through your budget and get rid of anything that’s not essential to your everyday life, including eating out, new clothes, and your monthly cable bill.

Talk to a Bankruptcy Lawyer

If your debt is too much to handle on your own, you’ll need to consult with a bankruptcy lawyer. Professionals, like Law Office of Barbara B. Braziel, know that you should keep in mind that there are two types of bankruptcy available. 

Chapter 7 involves liquidating your assets, whereas Chapter 13 involves setting up a payment plan and allows you to keep your assets.

Consider Debt Consolidation

An alternative to bankruptcy is debt consolidation, where you get a loan to pay off all your debts, and then make payments on that loan. 

This works best if you can get a loan that has a lower interest rate than your debt, as you’ll save money in the long run. Another benefit is that you’ll only have one debt payment to make every month, instead of payments to every creditor that you owe.

Choose a Payment Strategy

When you’ve minimized your expenses, you can put all your extra money towards your debt every month. If you don’t consolidate your debt or file for bankruptcy, there are two popular strategies to paying off debt. 

One is paying off the debt with the highest interest first to pay the least amount of interest. The other is paying off the smallest debt first to reduce your number of debts as quickly as possible.

The key to getting out of debt is building the right financial habits and staying disciplined about them. If you can avoid any unnecessary spending, you’ll cut down your debt much more quickly.