Fun & Finances: Tackling Debt In Your Twenties

The impact of living life with debt cannot be underestimated, even when you are a student in college, the amount of debt you can rack up can take years to pay off. And so once you soar into your twenties you may already be feeling the pressure of debt and financial anxiety. Living a good quality life in your twenties nowadays is a lot harder to come by, as most people are unable to afford a good night out socializing, and are working their fingers to the bone with underpaid jobs. But with a few simple changes you can get yourself out of debt but still lead a good life.

Develop A Strategy

If you've got numerous credit card bills and student loans to pay off, the first thing you need to do is to make a proper plan of how you are going to tackle it. There are methods of debt consolidation that you can find on websites like debtrelief.xyz, but one of the most popular methods of debt repayments making the rounds right now is the snowball method. This is where you pay your smallest debts first, despite the interest rates. By listing every debt you have, from smallest to largest, you pay the minimum balance on each debt apart from the smallest. With that debt, you set aside as much money as possible every month to pay off that debt until it has been eradicated. From there you move up to the next debt, and so on until all debt is paid off. The overwhelming positive of paying off debt in this manner is that it keeps you motivated as you are seeing each item of debt being paid off one by one, as opposed to trying to pay off everything all at once, which can leave you disheartened and mentally fatigued.

Take Up A Side Hustle

While no one wants to work an exorbitant amount of hours a week, if you have mounting debt, it can be a short-term issue for a long-term fix. The great thing about taking up a side hustle is that you can find numerous projects online through freelancer sites, you can have a look at this list on entrepreneur.com to get an idea of how many different freelancers sites there are, meaning you can pick up work to fill every bit of spare time you have. The work-life balance is something that a lot of people talk about, but if you are without a family and no outgoings apart from your debt, it can be argued that you can very easily take up a side hustle to add to your money pot.

Ask Yourself: What Do You Really Need?

During our twenties we can very easily overspend on things that we don't need, from products and items, all the way through to pointless debt. You may want to have a good look at your life and see what is essential for you to live day to day, for example, do you wear all the clothes you have in your wardrobe? Or do you need that car to get to work? You don't need to be ruthless, but by simplifying your life in some ways, it will have a positive impact on your life.

Our twenties should be a time of having fun and enjoying ourselves, but the debt we can amass in those ten short years can impact us for the rest of our lives, so make sure you strike a good balance between fun and finances.