Which Debt Relief Option Should You Choose?
By Michael G. Harris

Today there are many debt relief options available. With so many choices, which one is the best? There is only one choice that has personally worked for my family. It is debt elimination.

First, it's important to understand the difference between debt elimination and the other choices. Debt elimination is not debt management, debt consolidation, credit counseling, or debt reduction. Debt elimination is completely paying off all of your debts by adding a little extra money each month to the minimum monthly payment of a certain bill.

Usually, it's best to start with your smallest debt, pay it off, and then start on the next one. This creates a snowball effect where each debt is paid off in order from smallest to largest. Of course, you have to avoid creating new debt and live within your means for this plan to work.

After figuring out which bill to focus on paying off first, you will need to come up with a little extra money. This extra money will be used to help accelerate your bill payoff. There are many ways to find money to pay off debt. Some of these might include reducing spending, selling things, part time work, or a tax refund.

Reducing your spending is probably the first place you should look. When my wife and I were looking at ways to reduce our spending, we found several minor expenses that eventually added up to big savings. For example, we started taking our lunch to work and applied the savings to eliminating our debts.

Also, we started using coupons more at the grocery store and saved on energy costs by putting an insulation blanket around our hot water heater. By the time we made some minor changes in our budget, we had over $200 a month to apply to debt reduction and we didn't fell deprived. We managed to pay off over $10,000 in car payments in under 2 years on our modest teaching salary by making a few small changes. It worked for us and it can work for you, too.