Читать книгу Sort Your Money Out - Glen James - Страница 26

For some reason I always thought someone else would come along and save me from my debt and that debt was just a normal part of adult life, but it had become apparent that I had to take responsibility for my own situation. Though I had accumulated some savings, I had a scarcity mindset and was fearful of paying off debt in case I needed those savings. Dumb.

I decided to give the debt snowball a go, starting with my smallest credit card debt. I had held this for a whopping 15 years without ever paying the $2000 balance off fully. The success feeling worked … and I booked a 15-minute call with a financial adviser to keep working through my debts (embarrassingly, $25 000 worth of credit card debt over five cards, thanks to multiple balance transfers and just getting stuck; and a car loan with about $7000 left).

I kept using the snowball method on my debts and it felt bloody good. I was working weekends and nights to continue being able to get on top of it all. One after the other I paid off my car loan and credit cards, while still being able to save a lot of money. I paused the repayments during COVID as a ‘just in case’, but it soon became apparent that I wasn't going to be affected and was actually saving an extra $900 per month by not going into the office and buying lunches, transport costs and dinners/brunches out. So I paid off my last $10 000 limit credit card.

Fast forward and I just got approved for my construction loan to build a house on land I bought. So while paying off my debts I had also managed to save around $60 000 as a deposit.