Tracking your loan progress
It’s important to stop and assess if your debt problem is getting worse by the day, or if you’ve managed to stop the bleeding. If your monthly debt service is steadily climbing each month, that’s the dead opposite of trying to get rid of debt. If more water is leaking into the rowboat than you’re bailing out, it’s only a matter of time before you sink. In other words, you’ve got to take decisive action.
To make sure you’re not taking two steps forward and three steps back, make a chart where you start tracking your short-term balance, long-term balance, monthly debt service, and credit score.
It doesn’t matter how you create this chart. If you know how to use a computer spreadsheet, you can do it there. If not, go steal some paper and crayons from the closest kid you can find. Whatever you do, make sure it’s got a graph that plots your progress or decline. I promise this will go a long way to keeping you motivated and on track.