Christian Debt Elimination–Ten Places to Find Money Without Changing Your Lifestyle

You’ve made the decision to live debt free. You’re convinced that as a Christian, debt should not be a part of your life. But, there’s one problem, you’re living paycheck to paycheck. You don’t have any extra money to get rid of the debt.  Here are ten places to find money to use to eliminate your debt.

1. Reduce the interest rate on your mortgage.  On a $100,000, 30-year mortgage, reducing your interest rate by just 1% (from 8% to 7%) would save you $68.46 per month.
2. Consolidate high interest credit cards and finance loans into a second mortgage.  You can free up a significant amount of money each month by consolidating debt; and you have the added bonus of possibly being able to write off the interest paid on this second mortgage.  This option is not for everyone.  Read Four Reason to Consolidate Debt With a Second Mortgage to see when debt consolidation is the right choice for you.
3. Maximize your IRS deductions.  90% of Americans receive a tax refunds.  By failing to take the correct number of deductions, you’re providing an interest-free loan to the federal government.  By receiving that money in each paycheck, you’ll put the money back into your budget to be used to pay off your debt.
4. Raise the deductibles on your automobile and homeowner’s insurance.  This won’t save you a ton of money, but even the little things add up.  Before doing this, make sure you have a cash reserve built up to cover the cost of the deductible amount.  Read Five Quick Ways to Build a Cash Reserve to see ways to build your cash reserve.
5. Switch from whole life insurance to term life insurance.  Whole life insurance is always more expensive than a term life policy because of the savings component and additional fees associated with them.  Read Why Term Life Insurance is Better than Whole Life Insurance to learn why term life is better than whole life insurance.  [Caution:  Never cancel a life insurance policy before you have a new policy in place.]
6. Cancel credit life insurance.  Credit life pays off the debt owed on car loans and mortgages in the event you die before the loan is paid off.  Credit life is a decreasing value life insurance policy.  With every payment you make on the loan, the value of the policy goes down, but the premium never goes down.  It is the most expensive form of life insurance you can get because you don’t have to qualify for it.  If you have a term life policy in place with the proper amount of coverage, you never need credit life.
7. Temporarily stop your 401K contributions.  While you’re eliminating debt, stop the contributions and apply that money toward your debt.
8. If you own a small business (even if its home-based) have a tax review done.  60% of people overpay the IRS due to incorrect tax preparation.  There are companies that will review your previous tax returns free of charge and charge you only if they are able to get you a tax refund.  Getting a lump sum like this can give you a great jump start to your debt elimination.
9. Change banks.  If you’re paying for your checking account, it’s time to find a new bank.  Free checking is quite common, so you shouldn’t have any problem finding a bank that offers free checking.
10. Search unclaimedfunds.org for money that belongs to you.  Not every state is included on this site, so do a search for your state’s treasure hunt or unclaimed funds site.  Use this “found” money to accelerate your debt payments.

Once you’ve freed up money to apply toward your debt payments, you need a plan to get out of debt as quickly as possible.  Get your free debt elimination plan here.