How to pay off debts after a summer splurge

The joy of greeting your friends in a cafe or restaurant, the giddiness of seeing the world rushing by below you from the seat of an aircraft, the weirdly constricting sensation of swapping sweat pants for more formal attire – the summer of 2021 brought back many experiences we had forgone during the past year and a half of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But this push to re-create a world that felt something like “normal” may have brought back another familiar feeling: the anxiety of racking up debt.

If your summer of “revenge” spending has come for a payback of its own in the form of lingering debt, make a plan for paying it off. Then, think about how to prevent yourself from getting into more debt as you navigate progress and setbacks on the path to normality.

Take stock of your debt – and find your pay-off path

Whether you are back to spending most of your time at home or killing time at an airport terminal before a flight, find time to sort out your debt and pick a pay-off strategy.

First, understand exactly how much you owe and to whom. If you don’t know all the details, California-based certified financial planner Pamela Rodriguez suggests looking at your credit reports.

“Pulling your credit report is probably the fastest way to know what you owe because there’s no hiding from your credit report,” Ms Rodriguez says.

Using a spreadsheet, pencil and paper or a debt pay-off app, list your debts. Include the balance, interest rate and monthly minimum payment for each. Be sure to account for all forms of debt, like buy-now-pay-later loans.

Then, dig into your income and expenses to see how much money you can put towards debt and where you can cut spending. If you are spending more on dining out than you were six months ago, for example, try cutting back on that to free up cash for debt pay-off.

Next, pick a strategy for paying it off. Here are a few common tactics:

Debt snowball: With the debt snowball, you channel your debt pay-off energy towards the smallest balance first, while making minimum payments on the rest. Once the smallest debt is knocked out, roll the amount you were paying on it to the next smallest debt. As you wipe out more debts, the payment amount keeps growing like a snowball until you are debt-free.

Debt avalanche: With this method, you pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first. Then, similar to the debt snowball method, once that is paid off, you cascade the payment on to your debt with the next highest interest rate.

Balance transfer credit card: If your credit score is high enough to qualify for one, a credit card with a zero per cent annual percentage rate promotional period can help you pay off debt faster and cheaper than keeping it on the original credit card. Be sure to wipe out the balance before the zero per cent promotional period ends to avoid paying interest.

No matter which pay-off path you choose, it is important to decide on one and commit. Waffling between a few different options can cost you time and money as debts continue to accrue interest.

“People have decision overload when figuring out how to pay off their debt,” says Thomas Nitzsche, a financial educator at the non-profit credit counselling agency Money Management International. “Just come to terms with the fact that you are going to have to do something and figure out a way to overcome that emotional barrier.”

Know your spending habits and triggers

If your summer debt was the result of revenge spending, dig into the triggers that led you to overspending so you can avoid sliding back into debt in the future.

For many, that may have been the opportunity to experience something that they were deprived of during the first year of the pandemic.

While travel and eating at restaurants may be safer for those who are vaccinated, these activities can wear down your budget. Find more affordable ways to enjoy activities you are seeking, she adds.

“If you can think of the one thing you were deprived of, find a smaller scale of that,” Ms Rodriguez says. “So a smaller scale of travel would be going on a local adventure, and that is so much more manageable financially.”

The path forward in the pandemic seems likely to have a number of starts and stops, with accompanying opportunities to either spend or save money.

Take advantage of moments where you can pull back your spending and direct more cash towards your debt. Having manageable debt – or no debt at all – equips you with more options whenever the world is ready to fully reopen.