What to do if you're stressed by debt
3 mins
Tough times are leaving many South Africans stressed by debt. These tips may help.
Pandemics, wars and a tough global economy over the past few years have left many South Africans battling to make ends meet. The rising cost of living might be making it tough for you to keep up with debt payments. You might be keen to start reducing your debt load.
Nedbank’s financial experts have shared 5 handy tips to guide you
- Now is a great time to consider anything in your monthly spend that is non-essential (eating out, holidays, entertainment, alcohol) and redirect spend into a savings account. It’s also wise to bank any savings you make if you are working from home and no longer commuting.
- Continue to pay your contractual obligations like medical aid and life insurance. You still need to protect your family and yourself in case of medical emergencies or death.
- Keep making any loan repayments you have. This will minimise the amount of interest you will pay over the loan term.
- If you have multiple personal loans in different places, think about consolidating your debt into a single personal loan, as you often save on your monthly repayments this way. To see what you could potentially save, try this loan consolidation calculator.
- If you haven’t had new quotes on your car or home insurance in the past 3 years, investigate whether you can get a better deal and save the difference. Contact your insurance broker to check.
If your income has dropped
If the turmoil over the past few years has led to a reduction in your income, experts recommend the following course of action.
- Estimate how much your income has fallen and see how you can reduce expenditure by a similar amount. Here, reducing spend on luxuries is still relevant, but the more your income has fallen, the more ruthless you need to be. Things that seemed like necessities – that TV subscription or gym membership – may need to fall in the luxuries category, and you may need to downgrade or cancel these contracts for now. Next, estimate how much the reduction in interest rate helps you across all of your debt, and explore how you can consolidate personal loans.
- If, after this, you still have a gap, contact your bank to seek instalment relief on any loans you have with them – be it your home loan, car loan, credit card or personal loan.
- Finally, you may have a credit life policy on your loan which can cover some instalments if you’ve lost your job or some income.
