These tips help you come up with a game plan
for your finances.
Hi, I'm John.
And I'm David.
We're the debt free guys
and hosts of the Queer Money podcast.
We became known as the debt free guys
after paying off $51,000 in credit card debt.
We've been together for 18 years, married for four.
We now live fabulously, not fabulously broke
and we help others do the same.
We both got into debt because we both came from times,
families, and places when it wasn't okay to be gay.
And we carried all that baggage with us into adulthood.
And as many Americans do, we numbed ourselves
to whatever pain we were feeling at that time with shopping.
So we were buying things we didn't need
with money we didn't have.
(upbeat music)
So how did we start paying our debt off?
Of course we needed a plan.
And the very first step of that plan was to figure
out where we were spending our money.
So I took a look at every single penny that we were spending
over the previous year.
Our biggest outlier is one
that many Americans struggle with,
and that was our dining out and grocery budget.
So we realized we had to become super meticulous
with our grocery shopping.
Buying items that were either on sale
or with a coupon, or ideally both.
We didn't stop going out to eat altogether
but we dialed that back.
So we had that much more money we could funnel
towards our credit card debt.
One of the other tips we used
when we were paying off our debt is called Money Chunking.
We've all sat down, ate the whole pint of ice cream
in one sitting, and then wish we had more later.
We do the exact same thing with our paychecks.
We get it, we spend it all.
And oftentimes that means we end up using our credit cards.
So instead of doing that, what we would do is we would chunk
out our paychecks so that we had specific amounts
of money set aside for very specific categories.
We weren't tempted then to start using our credit cards.
Another favorite tip of our is what we call NSE.
This was actually inspired
by our time watching Rachel Ray on The Food Network
when she would talk about her EVOO
and NSE stands for not so expensive.
As we age or as our incomes increase,
most of us experience lifestyle creep.
What we could do for $20 at one time suddenly costs $60.
And so we realized that if we got more strategic
with how we spent our money,
we would have that much more money
that we could save
and put towards our credit card debt.
Wine, clothing, travel, and even dining out.
You can still appreciate
and enjoy the things that you like
but finding slightly cheaper alternatives,
will help you stretch your dollars further.
One of the tips that we used when paying
off our credit card debt was Send it Before You Spend It.
We've all been there.
Paycheck comes rolling in.
We see that balance in our account.
We get excited.
And what do we do?
We go out and have fun.
Then the bills start rolling in
and we switch to using our credit cards.
When that money comes in, make sure you send it.
Whether it's to bills or credit cards, pay that off first.
Then you know exactly how much money you can have fun with.
And then finally, we've created our Debt Lasso Method.
The Debt Lasso Method comes down to five steps.
First is to commit.
Commit to not using your credit cards anymore.
Commit to a specific dollar amount you'll send
to your credit card balances every single month.
Step two is to trim.
With that committed balance you'll send
to your credit card every single month,
you can pay off a couple of credit cards in the first month
or two and get some quick wins under your belt.
Step three is the lasso portion,
bringing as many of those credit cards
into as few locations as possible
and driving the interest rate down, as close to zero
as you can get it.
The fourth step is to automate.
A lot of folks miss their credit card payments
and other bills because they forget about them.
So automate as many bills as you can so
that you don't miss them.
And then the fifth step is to monitor.
You wanna make sure all of that is happening every month
but also, when you pay off a credit card,
you wanna shift the payment from that credit card
over to those other credit cards.
(upbeat music)
We hope these tips help you come up
with a game plan for your finances.
So that you can live your most fabulous life too.
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