A critical part of a debt diet and debt repayment plan is tallying up all your outstanding debts so you have a complete picture of what you owe. When you add up your debts, you need to know more than just who you owe and your monthly payment. You should also list the total amount due and the interest rates for each of your debts. This will help you figure out which debts you should pay first and which can wait.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: 1 to 3 hours
Here's How:
- Open and print the Debt Tracker Worksheet. If you do not have a printer available, make a similar chart on a piece of paper. This worksheet is like a checklist that includes the most common types of debt.
- Gather credit card billing statements, loan documents, cancelled checks, bank statements, and other papers related to your debts. Go through each of your monthly credit card and loan statements and write down the creditor or lender for each one. Your statements should also include the payoff balance, interest rate, and minimum payment for that month.
- Use cancelled checks to give you an idea of who you owe. Compare your checks to the list you’ve already created to see if you’ve missed anyone. If you don’t have cancelled checks, you can check your paper or online checking account statement (from the account where you pay your bills) to see who you’ve been paying each month.
- Check your credit report for credit cards, loans, and even collection accounts and medical bills. You can order your credit report online at AnnualCreditReport.com or from any of the three credit bureaus. Once you get your credit report, read through each account to make sure you have it on your list. If you see a new account, add it to your debt list.
- Once you’ve listed the details about each debt, you can add up the total balance due and minimum payments to see the grand total of what you owe and what you pay toward debt each month.
Tips:
- Use the lines marked other to write in debts that aren't already listed on the Debt Tracker Worksheet.
- When you’re putting together a debt repayment plan, you can use this list of debts to prioritize your debts deciding the order that you’re going to repay your debt.
- As you look through your credit report, highlight any suspicious accounts that you don’t remember opening. Later, you can use the credit report dispute process to have these accounts removed from your credit history.
What You Need
- Debt Tracker Worksheet or paper
- Pencil or pen
- Calculator
- Credit card statements
- Bank statements
- Loan documents
- Recent credit report
- Medical bills
- Debt collection notices
