Reducing debt advise?

[Whatsmyusername1235]

Hi, I am trying to reduce my debt and make it more manageable and eventually become debt free but I am really struggling at the moment. I have heard of the ‘snowball’ method and would like to try this. Have you ever tried to reduce debt this way? I am only working part time at the moment on a very low wage which is barely covering anything so it’s getting really hard.
has anyone got any side hustles they do or know of any way of making a little extra money such as doing surveyors etc? I have two young children so can’t take up a second job as I don’t have the time

I used a snowballing website years ago - you put all your debts, rates of interest and min payments in and it calculates how quickly you can pay off the lot. The principle is pay minimum repayments for all but one. So, if you can pay £200 a month, and the minimum for all of them comes to £150, you throw the remaining £50 at the debt with the highest interest rate until it's paid. Then you attack the next one.

It works of course if you are disciplined, and after a couple of false starts I was. I made it a challenge and found it motivating to see the accounts drop of the list. That said, if you only have enough money to pay the minimum for them all, it's not going to work.

I would consider seeking help from one of the free debt advice charities. Definitely try to get interest frozen. Oh, the other thing you can do with snowballing is when the debt gets low, offer less as a settlement figure if you can afford it. It's often accepted.

Side hustles - ebay/Vinted? Crafts that you can sell?

Thanks for the reply!

I will search the snowballing website. The reason I wanted to use this method is because once I’ve paid one debt I can use this as motivation as I will see the debt going down and it’s one debt gone forever.
my lowest debt is £64 so I’m hoping to pay this off by end of the month even though the interest for this debt is only something like £2.50 I just want it gone 😂 my highest debt is £900!
I will see if i have anything I can sell on Vinted, I have a few bits I think.

Go onto the moneysavingexpert website and search for their Debt Free Wannabee forum. There'll be lots of good advice on there.

Also, if you email your local CAB (the phone lines are always busy so email will be your best bet) and ask for an appointment with a debt adviser, they should be able to help you.

Good luck.