Once you’ve made the move to consolidating your debts, you can use it as a starting point for other good financial practices to keep yourself on the right track.
Once you’ve made the move to consolidating your debts, you can use it as a starting point for other good financial practices to keep yourself on the right track.
Consider closing your credit card accounts.
Once your credit card bill has been paid off via your debt consolidation, you could consider talking to your bank about closing the account, so you're not tempted to keep using the card.
If you do make that decision make sure you have a zero balance and cancel any direct debits that come off that card, before you close the account. You don’t want those payees turning into defaulted payments that will hurt your credit score in the future.
Cash is your friend
Modern life makes it very easy to pay for things without ever seeing the money come out of your account. A wave of your phone or a tap of your card and you have that giant flat white without even blinking.
Now, we love a flat white as much as anyone, but if you’re trying to keep track of your spending it’s those incidentals that creep up on you, until you realise you’re accounts are looking empty and pay day is still way off on the horizon.
This is where good, old school cash comes into its own. Give yourself a set amount of cash each week, that you know you can afford, for use on things like lunches, coffees and other weekly incidental things you regularly purchase.
Cash is also a great idea for the supermarket, which is another place it’s easy to overspend by just throwing a few extra delicious treats in the trolley. Write a list, work out how much it will cost and take that amount of money in cash.
Here’s another supermarket shopping trip: never shop hungry!
More tips for thrifty trips to the supermarket.
Keep up with your repayments
If you’ve decided to consolidate debt with a personal loan, make sure you are clear on what day the repayments come out of your account, and make sure you have enough money in that account to cover it.
Late payments will often attract fees, and will also impact your credit score, which may have ongoing implications when you apply for loans or other financial products in the future.
Download the New Zealander’s Guide to Debt Consolidation
- We write these articles for you, our Harmoney borrowers, to be, what we hope, are helpful tools for different aspects of life. The information is designed to be a general guide only. As you read, you should consider how - or if - the information might apply to your circumstances and consider if your needs mean you should seek further advice from an expert in that particular field.
