[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's Tuesday. That means it's Take Control Tuesday. And Mansa Musa is on the phone with me. And last week, Mansa, we talked about the change in the seasons, economically, generational changes, and we have ways to prepare for this and today we're going to talk about that.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Yeah. One of the best things you can do regardless of the season, but especially now, in order to provide yourself as much flexibility and reduce your stressors, is to get out of debt. So we're going to talk about five things you can do right now to start reducing your debt.
The first step is to know your debt.
You've got to list every balance, every interest rate, every minimum payment. Now not knowing how much debt you have isn't going to change the amount of debt you have.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Very true.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: So go ahead and do this. Step one, no shame, no judgment, just clarity. We gotta know where we are if we're gonna take control of this.
The next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna pay off the smallest debt first.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Now that's known as the snowball method. There are other methods we can use as we move along, but we want to make sure we have early victory, early success and then is just wash, rinse and repeat.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Number three, we're going to call our creditors and see if we can get our interest rate lower. Yeah, there's an archive episode where we talked about jawboning your interest rate down on your credit card. You can ask about hardship programs, but see if you can get the cards that you still have balances on. See if you get get a lower interest rate for a period of time without a negative impact on your credit report.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: The fourth thing you want to do is you want to create margin for extra payments. And all that mean is not necessarily depriving yourself, but just look at how you're spending money every month. Look at some lower priority subscriptions and things like that where you might be able to generate a little extra free money per se every month that you can put on this debt, pay down. So just look for those little lectures. I mean, even if you get 5, 25, 50 bucks a month, that can make a big difference over time.
The next one is stop adding new debt while you're paying down old debt.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Phew.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Now you can't drain the tub if the water's running right. You can't build a boat if you're drilling holes on and on the things go, but this is the time you may have to go to cash. Four season, things like that slow down on your convenience spending, but stop adding to the new debt while we're dealing with the old debt. Now let me leave you with this debt. Freedom for most people doesn't come from one big move. It comes from consistent small decisions that you make over time that build momentum with small win will get after it and it'll start working for you.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so good to be able to see those debts go down after so much hard work. So those are all great, great tips and we will have this on the website as well as the archives so you can check
[email protected] Mansa thank you so much.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Thank you.
