YNAB You Need A Budget

[blueskygal]

This was a "holding strategy" only - but worked for me during a time when I had little income and high payments.

Here's the strategy. For me, this was a short term strategy to deal with lack of cash flow until i could get in a better financial position.

Here's how it works:

Let's say your monthly credit card payment is $150 and your interest comes to $25.
You pay the credit card in cash, and then can charge back everything but the $25.
This leaves $125 spending money for the month.
You track this with a checkbook to make sure you are not exceeding your "budget."
Using this strategy I only debted $400 all year and so the balances were only $400 bigger.
When I got a better job I got great rates of 3.99 and 4.99 which cut my interest in half.
I have been paying off since.

THIS IS A STRATEGY WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS. For people swimming in debt and wanting to go to debt management company this is a way to stay afloat until you can get in a better position without having to incur further debt.

I just got a copy of my experian credit report and all my accounts were always marked paid in full, etc.
It created a great report for me as well.

I am once again going to use this strategy on my short term debt until I can make more money to prevent further debting.