If becoming debt-free is one of your goals (and good debt aside,it probably should be), you’re going to want to use as many tricks as you can to pay down your debts much faster than the average person.
With that in mind, here are some of the best methods for paying off any loans you may have a whole lot faster:
Make Payments Every Two Weeks
Making payments to your lender on a bi-weekly basis instead of a monthly one will help you to accumulate much less interest on your debts, cut the amount of time you’re in debt for and show that you are a responsible borrower. Just make sure that you don’t get stung with any additional penalties for paying off your loans faster before you implement this very simple trick.
Round Up Your Payments
You will pay off your loans much faster if you pay more than the minimum each month. If things are tight and you can’t really pay a lot more towards the cost of your loan than you already are, then at least consider rounding it up, so if your payment is $36.75 per month, pay $40. It might not seem like much, but every penny really does count, and you’ll be surprised how much quicker you can clear your debts by doing this.
Refinance Your Loans
Another option that might help you to pay off your loans faster and save money is using a company like refinancestudent.loan to refinance your loans. They will give you a lump sum to pay off existing debts, so all you will be left with is a one lower interest loan that you can put all your efforts into clearing.
Sign Up to ImplulseSave
ImpulseSave is a great little tool that enables you to save money instead of spending it by encouraging you to use the money you are tempted to spend on a new pair of shoes, phone or dress, for example, to add to your savings, If you add the app to your phone, it will encourage you to do the right thing, save more money and use the cash to pay off your debts.
Use Windfalls to Make an Extra Payment
Whenever you get a tax refund, an unexpected bonus from work or you have a win on the lottery, for example, instead of treating it as ‘extra’ cash that you can use however you like, make a commitment to use it to make an extra payment on your loans. Do this, and you could shave several dollars off your monthly payments over the course of the year, simply by lowering your balance.
Use a Zero Interest Credit Card
If you can get a credit card that has a zero interest period on money transfers, use it to pay off your loan and then you can pay off the credit card balance interest-free. If you haven’t paid it off by the time the free period comes to an end, you can always apply for a zero interest balance transfer card and keep doing the credit card shuffle until it’s all gone. You know it makes sense!
Time to start bringing down that balance!