Is there anything scarier than a large debt?

You can try to put it “out of sight, out of mind” by paying the minimum, but all that is doing is making it grow with debt monster vitamins known as interest.

Like when you were younger, and there was a “monster” under the bed, we’re here to come and shed some light on what you think is scary but is very manageable, or a pile of washing like what was under my bed.

Nevertheless, a debt monster might be something that seems insurmountable, but if you break it down into its pieces and put yourself on a payment schedule, it can be cleaned up in no time.

For this example, let’s say the family car had a major meltdown, as cars tend to do. It’s not to the point that it needs to be replaced, but it needs about $5,000 worth of work. Another $5,000 away from being debt-free, but it’s not the end of the financial freedom dream.

While $5,000 is a lot at one time, if we break it down over a year, it’s roughly $13.70 a day. That takes a giant scary debt monster down to a cute little debt dust bunny quick. The ammo you are looking for to take down that debt beast is less than most would pay for a latte and a muffin in the morning.

Two simple options to reduce that debt quickly are finding $15-$20 per day out of your everyday spending to divert to that debt. There are countless blogs and articles around daily budgeting tweaks, and I’m sure that if you’re anything like me, you’ve already thought of some daily indulgences that you could do without to cover this. That money can be compounded into a monthly payment that would be above and beyond what you would have typically paid and assist in the slaying of that debt beast sooner.

The other option is to get what the kids call (and you can tell I’m not a kid because I used “what the kids call”) a “side hustle”—doing some form of paid online freelancing work that could easily net you $20 a day for no expenditure or prior experience. I will go into side hustle opportunities in a future blog, but Fiverr.com is a great place to start.

Once you’ve looked at your debt monster from these angles and worked out a simple-to-execute plan to tackle it, you’ll be back on your journey to Less Debt More Life™ before you know it.