Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

How to Practice Self-Care When Paying Down Debt

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Dave Ramsey says that paying off debt is more of a sprint (especially when you’re gazelle intense), but if you have a lot of debt, the payoff journey may feel more like a marathon. If you keep your nose to the grindstone without a break, your physical and emotional health may suffer. Practicing self-care will help you not only remain in good health but also have the stamina to see your debt-free journey to the end. Here are some tips you may want to utilize to care for yourself while working hard on paying down debt:

Make Sure You Have a Fun Money Fund

I know, you may feel like all of your money should go on debt repayment, and, yes, almost all of it should. However, set aside a small amount for fun money for the month. When my husband and I were paying down debt, we each got $20 for the month. I used mine to buy treats at the grocery store that weren’t in my budget or we sometimes used the money to get a dessert at a restaurant together. This money should be yours to spend any way you see fit and to give you a little wiggle room in your budget so you don’t feel deprived.

Do Something Just for You Every Day

What do you enjoy doing? Some people enjoy spending time in their gardens, running, doing yoga–the choice is yours. When I was working three jobs in my 20s, I enjoyed nothing more than coming home after a 12 or 14-hour day and slipping into a bubble bath. That was the perfect way to destress and relax.

Start a Pinterest Dream Board

Do you have a major goal when your debt is paid off? Maybe you’ve always wanted to visit France, and that’s how you plan to celebrate being debt-free (after you’ve saved cash for the trip, of course). Why not start a Pinterest board of all the places you want to go and things you want to see? You can create this board for any dream you plan to realize when your money is no longer going toward debt. The best part about Pinterest is that you can make the board secret so only you see it.

Make Your Meals at Home

Let’s face it, paying off debt and working hard to make extra money can be stressful and exhausting. While you may be tempted to grab quick food, know that doing that regularly can have negative effects on your health. Take the time to make homemade food. You’ll feel better, be healthier, and have more energy.

Listen to an Audio Book


You may not have the free time to sit down and read a book, but when you’re driving to and from work, why not listen to an audiobook? It can be a fiction book you listen to just for fun, or it can be a non-fiction book that will help you in your career. Gazelle intensity is exhausting and stressful, so make sure you make time to relax and take care of yourself.

What are some of your favorite ways to practice self-care?

4 Ways to Make Sure Your Bills Get Paid On Time

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You’re busy.  I get it.  I’m busy, too, and sometimes I forget to sit down and pay my bills in a timely manner.  However, I don’t want a ding to my credit score.  Because I’m so busy with my kids and their many activities, and L.I.F.E., I use several strategies to make sure my bills get paid on time.

Here are some of my favorite strategies:

Set e-mail reminders.

For each of my credit cards, I have set up e-mail reminders.  Depending on the company, I’m sent an e-mail reminder six to 10 days before my payment is due.  I can’t tell you how many times these e-mail reminders have meant the difference between a late and on-time payment.  Everyone should set e-mail reminders for their bills, in my opinion, especially if you have a very busy schedule.

Set up recurring payments to your credit card.

While I generally avoid setting up recurring payments to my checking account, I do advocate setting up recurring payments to credit cards.  Why?  If a charge is fraudulently applied to your credit card, the credit card company protects you.  If the same thing happens to your checking account, your entire account could be emptied, and then you would miss other payments to other creditors and have to pay for bounced checks.

In addition, if you have a credit card with a rewards program, you could gain rewards simply for paying your monthly bills that you used to pay via check and snail mail.  Those points can add up quickly when you’re paying your monthly recurring bills with credit cards.  Just make sure to pay off your credit card each month.

Set up a special account for automatic payments from your savings or checking.

If you still prefer to set up automatic payments to your bank account, I’d suggest setting up a separate account just for automatic payments.  Then, if there is an error on the vendor’s part, you don’t risk paying overdraft fees on your regular checking account.

I have one account that is devoted solely to automatic payments for my husband’s student loans and our life insurance (the only two payments I have set to auto pay from our bank account).  These are both fixed expenses, so at the beginning of every month, I just schedule a transfer to that account so the payments can be deducted.  Since I don’t use this account for any other purpose, there is no worry about not being able to make other payments or bouncing checks.

Keep all of your bills in one place.

If you’re still receiving bills in the mail rather than electronically, keep all of your bills in one place.  If you use snail mail, also keep stamps there.  Then, when you’re ready to sit down to pay your bills, you have everything you need right in one place.

What are your strategies to make sure your bills get paid on time?  What suggestions would you add to this list?

What’s Credit Insurance and How Can It Protect Me?

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This post in collaboration with Paul Brian

Credit card spending continues to increase in the United States. According to NerdWallet’s 2018 household debt survey, credit balances carried month to month increased five percent in late 2018 to surpass $420 billion.

The same survey found that around nine percent of Americans who have credit card debt don’t think they’ll ever be completely free from it. Considering the average revolving balance among households is nearly $7,000, the hopelessness makes sense.

While careless spending may be the reason for many people’s misfortunes, it doesn’t tell the whole tale. Aggressively high interest rates can punish any type of financial hardship, self-imposed or otherwise.

In these cases, things like credit insurance can prove valuable. There are many types of credit insurance, ranging from consumer to business needs. However, for the purpose of this article, we’ll discuss what consumer credit insurance is and the protections it offers.

What Is Credit Insurance?

Credit insurance is just as it sounds. It’s an insurance policy that a borrower has on their credit card. It’s a safeguard that pays off the credit card debt if something unexpected occurs that makes repayment difficult. The main types of credit insurance include credit life insurance, credit disability insurance, credit unemployment insurance, and credit property insurance.

How Do These Different Coverages Protect Me?

On a broad level, understanding how credit insurance protections work is quite straightforward. Credit life insurance pays off your debt if you pass away instead of your family being burdened by what you owe, while credit disability will cover your payments if you become disabled and aren’t able to work.

Less common types of credit insurance are unemployment insurance, which takes care of payments if someone is laid off; and credit property insurance, which protects property used to secure a loan if the property is damaged.

As ValuePenguin notes, any of these coverages can be taken out as a single or joint policy. A coverage type may also be worded differently depending on the institution offering it.

Do You Need Credit Insurance?

Credit insurance seems prudent to have, but how essential is it? It’s important to have financial protections in place that will cover you and/or your family should something unexpected occur, but doing so via credit insurance is typically the more expensive option to take.

This of course excludes situations in which credit insurance is required by the lender, such as in mortgage loans. However, this usually only happens when the borrower puts down less than 20 percent. This insurance can also be canceled once the borrower has built their equity over 20 percent.

As you peruse credit insurance terms and offers, evaluate the benefits and costs of life, disability, or supplemental unemployment insurance packages to ensure you’re getting something you actually need.

If you do find a credit insurance package you like, be sure to look at the fine print. It’s often a lack of preparedness and understanding that buries consumers in debt in the first place, which a quick scan of Freedom Debt Relief reviews unfortunately verify.

Like any credit card agreement, credit insurance policies are packed with jargon, small font, and exclusions. Ask questions until you know what you’re getting in a credit insurance policy. Ask questions like:

  • Does the insurance cover the entire loan’s entire term and balance?
  • Are there any exclusions that would impact coverage?
  • Does the lender have the right to change or cancel the policy at their discretion?
  • How long do the benefits take to be paid?

The last thing you want to do is pay for a policy monthly only to find that it doesn’t protect you in your time of need.