Tag: debt free journey 2022

tally is an incredibly unique platform 
designed to help you dig your way out   of credit card debt way faster and save 
thousands of dollars in the process but   is this platform truly worth it and can it 
actually save you time and money when getting   out of credit card debt well today let's 
find out alright let's jump right into it what is going on everyone i hope you were all 
having a fantastic day so i've spent a lot of   time on the channel talking about the importance 
of using credit cards properly by paying them off   on time every time every single month and not 
overspending as well but unfortunately that's   not the case for a lot of people and if you're 
watching this video then that might not be the   case for you so if you have gotten yourself into 
a mountain of credit card debt first i want to say   take a deep breath it's going to be all right and 
you are not alone and the platform we're looking   at in today's video might actually be able to 
help you out quite a lot so let's take a look   at how the tally platform works but first i want 
to clarify that there is an affiliate link down   in the description where you can sign up for tally 
if you do want to help support my channel however   as you have all come to expect this is going to 
be the fully open and honest review that i always   give on my channel okay so the way that the tally 
platform works can get a little bit confusing and   i've seen a lot of questions and confusions 
surrounding the platform online in researching   this video so first i want to explain what tally 
is in the most basic and easy to understand way   that i can so first of all when you sign up for 
tally they are going to review your credit history   including all of the lines of credit that you 
have and the balance and interest rates on each of   those that you owe from there their fancy computer 
algorithm is going to determine whether or not you   are eligible for a line of credit through tally 
and if so how much are they able to give you and   if approved they are essentially going to offer 
you a line of credit to pay off your existing   debts now just wait before you go firing away 
in the comment section i understand that the big   question here is why in the world would i take out 
a loan to pay off a loan and that is a very valid   question that actually took a lot of research 
on my end to truly get to the bottom of so the   ultimate goal of tally is to hopefully offer you 
a lower interest rate than what you're currently   paying on your various credit cards and honestly 
that shouldn't be too difficult in most situations   because credit cards are notorious for charging 
ridiculous interest rates that can easily go   as high as 20 or more now they are not able to 
guarantee that they will get you a lower interest   rate so obviously you will want to take a look 
at the interest rate that you're currently paying   and compare that to the offer that tally gives you 
but in most cases they are going to come out ahead   which depending on your situation and your numbers 
that could easily save you thousands and thousands   of dollars in the long term in fact tally actually 
estimates that its average tally plus member saved   hundred and 4 five dollars over just five years 
of using this platform which is pretty nuts if you   think about it so for the sake of simplicity let's 
say you've got a mountain of ten thousand dollars   of credit card debt across multiple credit cards 
and your average interest rate is 24 which is   very realistic that means that all other variables 
being equal and obviously excluding any other fees   that we don't know about you would pay roughly 
2 400 per year on your 10 000 of debt at a 24   interest rate but now let's say you take out 
a line of credit from tally who pays off those   credit cards and you now simply have to pay tally 
back the 10 000 at say a 14 interest rate well   again assuming all other variables stay exactly 
the same you would now owe roughly fourteen   hundred dollars in interest on your ten thousand 
dollars of debt throughout a full year meaning   in this example you saved one thousand dollars 
of interest that you would otherwise be paying   to the credit card providers had you not used 
tally to basically refinance your credit cards   now again this is just one very rough example 
and there are tons of other variables that you   need to take into account and consideration before 
actually making a decision on whether or not tally   is able to help you get rid of your credit card 
debt but thankfully tally does have a really easy   to use debt calculator on their websites where you 
can easily input every credit card that you have   including the balance and current interest rates 
and they can immediately give you a rough estimate   on how much you can save by using tally and what 
i love most about this feature is if they don't   think that they're able to save you money then 
they are happy to just let you know that straight   away which is probably good to know up front 
because again the goal here is to save money and   get out of debt faster so outside of the financial 
savings that this platform will hopefully be able   to offer you depending on your numbers the other 
huge advantage is obviously the fact that you now   only have to make one individual payment to tally 
rather than keeping track of multiple payments   that you've probably been juggling for multiple 
credit cards and other lines of credit as well   and hopefully this means that you'll be able to 
consistently make those on-time payments which   will be good for your credit score factors in the 
long term plus if you opt for tally plus which   we'll talk more about in a second they're actually 
able to effectively lower your apr by around four   percent after you make 12 on-time payments which 
if you do the math that is a pretty substantial   benefit if you have a large amount of debt all 
right so hopefully you are following me so far   and essentially while tally doesn't consider 
themselves to be a debt consolidation service   it is going to work in a very similar way in 
the sense that they are taking multiple debts   in this case credit cards that you may be 
juggling and they are consolidating it under   one easy to use platform and hopefully saving you 
some money in the process a few things i want to   clarify before we get into the different account 
options and prices though if you are approved by   tally for a line of credit that is larger than all 
of your credit card debts combined then tally is   going to immediately pay off the entire balance of 
all of those cards which in my opinion is really   the ideal situation because then all of those 
debts are immediately repaid and taken care of   and you just have to pay back tally again under 
one platform but where things often get a little   misconstrued by others looking at this platform is 
if you are approved for a line of credits that is   less than your total balance of all of your credit 
cards combined in that case you're only able to   pay down your debts up to the amount that you were 
approved by tally i know that's getting a little   bit confusing so hang with me for a second if you 
have five thousand dollars of credit card debt and   you're approved for a five thousand dollar line 
of credit from tally then they will immediately   pay off all of those different accounts and 
your five thousand dollars of debt will be gone   and you now have to pay back tally so you still 
have five thousand dollars of debt but again   hopefully your interest rate is now lower and you 
only have to pay in one place however say you have   that same five thousand dollars of credit card 
debt but tally is only able to approve you for a   two thousand dollar line of credit well what that 
means is they are able to pay off 2 000 of your 5   000 of debt immediately and then as you pay tally 
back they are able to apply more and more money   to your existing credit card balance but again 
even in that slightly more confusing situation   it is still consolidating all of that into one 
place to kind of remove that hassle for you so   that you just have to pay tally and they are going 
to take care of all of the rest of it for you   the reason i'm spending so much time on this is 
because i've seen a lot of people talking online   about how it makes no sense to pay 25 on a credit 
card and pay tally 15 and that suddenly means that   you're paying 40 interest that is not how this 
platform works but i understand that it does get   a little bit confusing depending on your situation 
and the line of credit that tally is able to offer   you but again it is super easy to walk through 
the entire process see if they are able to help   you out using that free debt calculator and then 
make an informed decision from there on whether   or not this will truly save you money in the 
long term all right enough about all of that   how much is this going to cost well there are 
actually two versions of tally the first of which   being tally basic however depending on how much 
credit card debt you have they also offer tally   plus which offers a larger line of credit than you 
would get with the tally basic as well as a member   discount applied monthly to your principal balance 
which comes at a price of 25 per month or 300 for   the entire year now 25 bucks per month might sound 
like a lot and you're right it is if you compare   that to some of the other monthly payments that 
many of us are currently paying and you might   also say that it's ridiculous for someone who has 
a ton of debt to pay a monthly fee for a service   like this however i want to remind you that tally 
plus is for those individuals who have accrued a   ton of credit card debts like tens of thousands 
of dollars in some cases and with tally plus   they typically are able to offer a line of credit 
ranging anywhere from between two thousand dollars   to twenty five thousand dollars that's a pretty 
big range but the reason i mention this to you   is if you have a substantial amount of credit 
card debt say ten thousand dollars or more and   you're paying maybe 24 interest then just like we 
talked about earlier you'd be paying roughly 2 400   per year just in interest payments which is why it 
is so difficult for individuals to dig their way   out of mountains of credit card debt but if tally 
plus is able to offer you a large enough loan to   pay off that entire ten thousand dollar balance 
and you now only have to pay say 14 interest   well in that example you'd be saving 1 000 in 
interest alone so suddenly 25 bucks per month or   300 for the entire year makes a lot of sense 
since for 300 a year you're basically saving a   thousand bucks again i know that there are so many 
different variables and combinations to consider   so i would definitely recommend playing around 
with that debt calculator and if you're really   feeling hopeful about tally then go ahead and 
apply see what they are able to actually offer you   because only then will you truly be able to crunch 
all of the numbers and get a proper understanding   of whether or not this platform is going 
to save you time and money in the long run   it really depends on your situation but for the 
sake of simplicity i will say that if tally is   able to offer you a large enough line of credits 
to pay off all of your existing credit card debt   at a lower interest rate then this is kind of 
a no-brainer regardless of the numbers but if   you've already created a financial mess with your 
credit cards then there is something to be said   for consolidating it under one platform hopefully 
getting a lower interest rate in the process and   getting some other advantages as well that tally 
is able to offer like an easy to use interface and   late fee protection just to name a few so if you 
are not currently in credit card debt then let's   definitely keep it that way but if you have gotten 
yourself into a bit of a financial mess with your   credit cards then don't worry it's gonna be 
okay and i would definitely recommend that   you check out tally and crunch the numbers and 
see if they are able to help you save money and   time on your credit card debt again if you do want 
to sign up for the platform then i will leave a   link down in the description below where you can 
do so and help support my channel which is always   i really appreciate it if you did get value out 
of this content and you want to help support me   the easiest way to do that is by checking out 
tally and letting me know what you think of   this platform down in the comment section below 
and of course by hitting the like button and   subscribe to the channel for more content like 
this in the future as always thank you so much   for your time i really do appreciate it so much 
take it easy and i'll see you in the next one

As found on YouTube

i have a story that you're probably not gonna believe my friends are always like oh sad you're so smart with money you probably always knew how to invest money no i didn't i made a lot of bad financial decisions way before i started my youtube channel or became a financial coach showing you all these awesome retirement spreadsheets and strategies i was in a huge financial mess my credit score back in 2014 was 580 and owed about almost 110 000 in consumer debt and that did not include my mortgage and out of that 110 000 i owed about 47 000 in credit card debt and i had a total of five credit cards that were completely maxed out and i was making minimum payments on them and i didn't realize how bad it was until i looked at my net worth at the time and if you're brand new to my channel my name is sai and welcome to my channel so in this video i'm going to show you how i paid off 47 000 in credit card debt in 24 months making 58 000 a year and i'm also gonna share the spreadsheets i use to pay off my debt quickly and i have been debt free since 2016 and it was one of the first steps i had to take before i got on my fire journey to retire early by age 45 not only that i had a spending problem i had to change my mindset about how i use my credit cards and i was literally going to the stores bars and restaurants and just swiping my credit cards and only making minimum payments on him because i thought that was the normal thing to do so let me list the debt that i had back in 2013 and 2014.

I had a personal loan for 8 700 that i took out for my divorce attorney i had a tsp loan for ten thousand dollars which i made a separate video about and i will link that video in the description below i had two car loans and that one of them was for my divorce but i was able to trade them in and downsize my car to the bare minimum and i owed 42 000 total at the time but i was able to get rid of them pretty quickly by taking them back to the dealership then i can make a video about that in the future if you enjoy this video and here are my credit cards i had a capital one mastercard i owed for six thousand dollars i had a military star card for eight thousand dollars and if you're in the military watching this video right now you know this is a common problem in the military i had a capital one visa credit card that i owed about nine thousand dollars i had a chase freedom card that i owe for twelve thousand and i had a usaa mastercard that i owed for twelve thousand and that was a total of forty seven thousand dollars in credit card debt the minimum payments for those credit cards for 470 a month and the interest rates were anywhere between 18 and 27 let me show you the spreadsheets i used to pay off my credit card debt but first if you need help with your personal finances like paying off your debt or creating a retirement strategy you can schedule a free 10120 run to financial coaching session by visiting fisachat.com coaching so the first thing i did on my spreadsheet was listing my credit card debt from smallest to largest by balance and the interest rates were all about the same so i wanted to knock out the one with the smallest balance first and then get to the largest my income at the time was 58 000 a year so my plan was to pay off my 47 000 in less than two years i wanted to pay off at least twenty four thousand dollars in 2014 and then twenty three thousand dollars in 2015.

The first credit card i was going to tackle was my capital one mastercard because it had the lowest balance at six thousand dollars and a minimum payment was 60 a month after i significantly reduced my expenses on my budget and started working on some side hustles to bring in extra income i started to put extra money extra payments into this one credit card while i paid minimum payments on the other four credit cards keep in mind that i had already gotten rid of my car loan so i had an extra 673 a month to pay off my first card as soon as possible as you can see on the left hand side i had a plan to pay my credit cards every two weeks and i was getting paid on the first and the 15th for my primary employer i put one thousand dollars every two weeks to my first credit card and i got to tell you my first credit card was the hardest to pay off because i was still trying to get used to the new budget system so my budget had 50 expenses and 50 of that was going to my debt and this capital one mastercard was my only focus for the first six months from january to june 2014.

When i paid off the capital one mastercard in june i moved on to the military start card and because i continued to make the minimum payments for the first six months of the year my total balance was reduced from eight thousand dollars to seven eight hundred dollars at that point i was still living at a bare minimum by eating ramen noodles almost every day and driving less to work by carpooling with my co-workers so i could save money on gas because i no longer had a minimum payment for the first card i paid off i had more cash to pay towards my military star card so pretty much half of my paycheck went into this credit card and i was paying 1200 every two weeks until november when i completely paid it off so at this point i only paid fourteen thousand dollars out of the twenty four thousand dollars i had originally planned and i gotta tell you i felt pretty discouraged because my debt payoff plan wasn't going as fast as i wanted to so i did some research online and try to find out if there were any other ways to pay off my credit cards as soon as possible what i found was that as an active duty member i could apply for what's called a service member civil relief act or scra the scra could significantly reduce my interest rates with credit cards and i applied for the scra with capital one chase and usaa a few weeks later i got a letter from chase that my interest rates were temporarily reduced to three percent and they refunded thirty five hundred dollars in interest that i had accrued over the last three years capital one also reduced my interest rates to four percent and they also credited my account in the amount of twenty five hundred dollars in interest that occurred over the last four years usa on the other hand didn't give me the scra benefits so but this is fine because i just saved almost six well over six thousand dollars in credit card interest and on top of that they refunded me another 800 from the first capital one mastercard that i had already paid off so i put that towards my third credit card which was the capital one visa card by the way you can get your free fire resources like this spreadsheet by visiting firestation.com contact you can also check out the fireside chat shop and i have all of my stuff on my bookshelf at firesidechat.com shopping so in november my capital one visa card was credited 2500 and i deposited the 800 check that i got from capital one for the capital one mastercard and my chase visa card was already credited 3500 in interest so my minimum payment amounts were also reduced significantly because my interest rates dropped from roughly twenty percent to four percent and i was paying way more principal than interest at that point so by march 2015 i was able to pay off my capital one visa card at this point i had two credit cards left and i owed about nineteen thousand dollars i started to become even more aggressive by paying fifteen hundred dollars every two weeks to my chase visa card and by july i paid off the chase visa card and then moved on to the last credit card which was the usa visa card and you see how my payments increased as i paid off my credit cards right so i paid 1800 every two weeks to my usa visa card from july to december on december 18 2015 i made my last credit card payment and became debt free guys i can't begin to describe the feeling that i had when i made my last credit card payment and i didn't tell anyone about my debt payoff plan i just didn't want to tell anyone about it and i and i decided to went to this sushi restaurant and had all-you-can-eat sushi just for me and i sat there all by myself and started writing down my financial independence and retired early strategy and i was 29 years old at the time and i realized how much time i wasted by paying off my 47 000 in credit card debt but i had something else to look forward to and that is to start maximize my retirement contributions starting in 2016.

So i never had a student loan because i joined the military right after high school the most common debts people in the military have is the credit card debt and car loans i was making 58 000 a year in 2013 and 2014 but i had over 42 000 in car loans and i was spending money like i was making a million dollars a year i never tracked my expenses um closely and decided to ignore my problem until one day i thought it would be fun to create my very first network statement and that didn't turn out very well so generally you have two methods to pay off your debt and the first method is the snowball method and the second one is the avalanche method with the snowball method you pay off your debt from smallest to largest by the by the balance regardless of the interest rates in my case with the credit cards i use the snowball method because these five credit cards have very similar interest rates and when i paid off my first credit card i felt the momentum and motivation to settle my debt fast it helped me psychologically to stay on track to pay off my debt from one credit card to the next the avalanche method can be helpful especially if you have the most outrageous interest rate from the let's say the payday loan at 300 or 500 yes it's real those payday loans are so predatory it should be illegal for them to operate and paying off your debt with the highest interest rate first will allow you to minimize the amount of interest you pay for the long term you can mathematically pay off your debt a lot faster this way but it does take a lot of discipline and commitment to make it happen bankrate did a survey and found that 54 of americans are carrying credit card balances from month to month and half of those people have been in credit card debt for over a year the average person with credit card debt owes about sixty two hundred dollars and that's according to the data from the federal reserves survey of consumer finances i wanted to pay off my debt as soon as possible so i could start investing more into the stock market and i feel so ashamed about my finances i didn't want to tell anyone else including my family about the trouble i was in if you're in the same situation like i was don't give up and stick to the plan and you don't want to be in debt for 10 15 or 20 years right you have to be willing to make some sacrifices for a year two years or three years so that you can start working on your financial independence journey something else that helped me tremendously was realizing the mess i was in when i was still on active duty in the military and i understand that's the privilege that everyone will have you can apply for the scra at any time with your bank and they could help you reduce your interest rates and minimum payments what you want to do though is to pay off one credit card at a time as soon as possible i have been very responsible with my spending since i started my debt free journey in 2014 because i never want to be in that situation ever again and not only i maximize my contributions to my retirement but i can go on vacations overseas or anywhere in the states without taking out any debt if you want to know more about how we save for our retirement and plan to retire early by age 45 be sure to check out these two videos so with that said i appreciate you watching my video don't forget to subscribe and i hope to see you in the next video have a good one [Music]