How to Get Out of Debt

Most banks, credit card companies, and even investment companies allow you access to your accounts online. Set them up! Remember your login IDs and Passwords! Some can be a pain to set up, but you’ll be glad you did. This way you can go to each site and take a look at what is currently going on with your accounts, instead of waiting for the next time they come in the mail with now outdated information.

I recently found out about two highly secure websites where you can access your different online accounts from! This helps show your total debt, checking account status, stocks, and other investments. They show you running totals of all money transactions that take place in these accounts. They’ll even show you where you can save by switching to someone else.

mint.com
moneycenter.yodlee.com

Both sites are said to be highly secure. Yodlee is a company that many banks use for their own purposes.

Both allow you access to your checking accounts, savings accounts and credit card accounts. Yodlee, also allows you to view your investments such as your 401(k), stocks, bonds, etc. mint.com plans to do this as well.

I have both set up myself. I prefer the look of mint.com, but I love the reliability in Yodlee’s updating, not to mention being able to access my investments. mint.com is nice because it makes suggestions of where you can save money by switching your credit card or bank to another.

Ok, so now you’ve got those sites set up and you can access your accounts. You’re looking at it and you’re thinking “Ok, well I already knew I was broke. I didn’t realize I was that broke, but still.” Take a look at your spending habits. Where are you spending unnecessarily? With mint.com, you can setup a budget and keep track of that budget right there on site. With either site, you can setup alerts to notify you of when an account has reached a certain high or low point, and even let you know when there has been a large deposit or withdrawal.

Now that you understand your spending habits a bit better, it’s time to take some control and cut back on the unnecessary things, pay down some of those bills and start putting that wasted money into something that will help you, not hurt you, financially.

Take a look at the credit card that you have with the highest interest rate. Either try transferring that balance to a new credit card with a lower interest rate or, without breaking your bank, put the most money into paying that one off. If the minimum payment due is $30, pay $130. You’ll save a ton of money by doing this. Keep paying it down until you don’t owe anything on it anymore and KEEP IT THAT WAY! Do the same with the next one. You’ll get rid of those credit card bills before you know it.

If you have a 401(k) plan at work, see how much you’re putting into your account. Then see how much your employer will match. If they’ll match up to 3%, then why not take 3% of your pre-tax pay and put it in there? The employer is essentially DOUBLING what you put into your account!

Other investments:

Let’s start small. Take a look at investment companies like E*TRADE. They have a fantastic Complete Savings account which recently had a 5.05% APY. And it only takes $1 to open one! Of course I’d suggest putting in more than $1 if you can afford it.

Take the bits of money that you can afford each month and keep investing in this account. It’s better than the cookie jar because there’s interest growing. E*TRADE makes it really simple to add more funds to the account by allowing you to setup an external account with them so that you can access the funds in your checking account or whatever other investment account you have.

After some time, and a LOT of research, you may even feel comfortable investing in some money market funds, bonds, or even stocks. And you may even be able to set up these accounts through the current investment companies that you already have accounts with.

Now you can keep track of your money, lack of money, and investments in one or two places! Soon you’ll have less debt. And you’ll have your money working for you in several different investments for the future.

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