Skip to main content

The Extras


Okay! You’ve got money in all your “accounts.” You are ready for the monthly ritual of the "paying-of-the-bills" for next month instead of playing catch up for the month behind. You might even have a little extra. Maybe you have a little left over from your tax return after padding all those accounts. And remember when we mentioned those one or two extra paychecks a year? Here is what you do with that surplus: put it in the account of the smallest debt.

“But, I have enough money to make that payment already,” you say.

Yes, but we are not JUST making the payment, we are GETTING OUT OF DEBT which means we’ve got to pay EXTRA when we can. So do it. Put that extra money into that account with the smallest balance.

“Ok, so I put in enough to match the balance of what I owe, and I STILL have money left.”

That is FABULOUS! Take the excess amount and put it on your NEXT smallest debt. Keep doing this until all the extra money is accounted for. Pretty soon your money will spread over fewer debts, allowing you to repeat this process with the regular money as well as the extra money.

Google says the definition of snowballing is: increase rapidly in size, intensity, or importance.

You might call this financial snowballing.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One More–Christmas Experiences Part II

Christmas is just a week away. Hopefully you’ve checked everything off your to-do list and can spend some quality time “experiencing” Christmas gifts with your family. Because, after all, your loved ones will be far more touched by how you made them feel than they will be with what you gave them. This week, I want to share with you my sister, Carey’s, family Christmas experience. “One Christmas, when my boys, now 18, 23 and 28, were little, we gave them an experience that is still talked about now. And it’s something so easily replicated that any family can do it, and it’s not too late to do it for Christmas (even ON Christmas) this year. We drove around our neighborhood and looked at all the homes decorated for the holiday. We took note of the addresses as we numbered them. We talked about what made each ornamented yards stand out. And at the end of the night, we voted for our favorite. I had my sons help me make some of our favorite holiday desserts and, in addition to taking p...

Bon Voyage

Many of you are aware that I like to travel. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting a few foreign countries and taking a handful of cruises, and I intend to do more in the not-to-distant future. Because you know me, you know I don’t finance these trips–I plan ahead and save for them. And if you’ve followed my blog for a while, you are also aware that I do use one credit card for which I earn flight miles, and I use this card on the trips where I see the world. There is one thing about my credit card for which I am especially grateful–whenever there is suspicious activity on my account, I get a text notification. The credit card company recognizes that charges abroad MIGHT NOT BE LEGIT, and they send me a message. All I have to do is confirm that it is, in fact, me that made the peculiar purchase, and I’m good to go. If I did not make the purchase, I respond in kind, and my card is deactivated. Note to self and others: one could avoid these potential interruptions if one calls credit car...

Stand Out

I heard Christmas music in the store today. I should not have been shocked, but I was. It seems that Christmas paraphernalia ends up in the stores earlier and earlier every year. Retailers are vying to get your attention so you’ll use your finite Christmas dollar to buy their product instead of someone else’s. This invokes multiple issues in my mind, but the one I’d like to address today is this–do we really need all this STUFF? When is enough enough? Because I was curious, I typed this phrase into Google: “things that will make you happy”. I was, again, a little surprised at what came up, this time pleasantly so. One of the top sites in the search result listed things that were not “things.” The “things” that make us truly happy are not tangible items (in fact, one of the “things” was actually getting rid of “things” by decluttering). They are experiences.    If you think back on Christmas or birthday celebrations from your youth, I am willing to bet that your favorite...