Debt Payoff Mistakes That Cost Me Money (Do This Instead)

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, this is Money Mom.

[00:00:01]Welcome to the channel. Today I want to chat with you guys about two mistakes that we made while paying off our debt and what I would tell someone to do now.

[00:00:09]Let me get right into it. First mistake I feel that we did is I only had a little over a thousand dollars in savings. For me that wasn't very smart because let's say I lost a job or we had a major emergency, I would have to go into debt for that, okay? So that wasn't very smart at all. The second mistake is I really didn't adjust our spending that much. I mean I did a little bit and I cut back a little, but I think I could have done better and I could have reallocated our budget. All my concentration was was to pay off that debt and then rebuild the savings, which is positive, but I I feel like I could have done better. Now, if I were going to give somebody advice right now that needed to pay off debt, you know, first thing I would do is have them sit down with their budget and see what's going out of the house. Are there any non-essential things that they're willing to cut out, okay? That'd be number one. You know, reallocate, look at what they have coming in and going out and how much do they have left over?

[00:01:08]That'd be the first thing I'd say.

[00:01:10]Secondly, I personally, and this I'm going to be very different than most people, while you're paying off debt, I would still have them put a little bit of money in your savings. That way if something comes up, you need a new tire or two things in the same month come up cuz I've seen this happen to people where they only have a thousand dollars in their savings and in the same month two things happen and it completely wipes out their savings and then they don't have anything or they don't have enough in their savings to take care of the emergencies. Some things you can put a band-aid on like one person I know needed a new tire and they didn't want to wipe out their savings because they didn't have quite a thousand in there. What they did is they bought a used tire and so that saved them some money. So sometimes you can put band-aids on things or buy used things, but nobody wants to wipe out their savings. So I would say while you're paying off your debt, at least try to put a little bit in savings and keep building it. That way if something were to happen, it keeps you from going back into debt. That's number one. You know, so do your budget number one, number two, save while paying off your debt and number three, my other advice is this, before deciding to pay off your debt, see if there's anything you absolutely need. Is there anything you need for your car? Is there anything you need for your home? Are there any repairs, any big bills, any expenses coming up? Maybe take care of those first before paying off your debt because one of the worst things that can happen while paying off debt is either things that keep popping up that cause you to go in your savings or stop you from paying off your debt.

[00:02:45]Like, oh, I was going to put another, you know, money more down on my debt this month, but I can't because, you know, I need a new computer or I can't this month because, >> [snorts] >> you know, I've got a car repair. So if you can work on getting a decent savings at I'm going to say a little more than a thousand, okay? And continually put money there and see if there's anything you need before you start. That way when you start paying off your debt, you're not going to be distracted by not having enough in savings and not having things that need to be repaired. This is just some of my advice. I did make a few mistakes. The good news is you guys saw my journey and we did become mortgage and consumer debt free and we have remained so. It did take a lot of work. There was some stress there because I didn't really feel like we had enough in savings. Luckily, no major emergency happened, but unfortunately, especially now, a thousand dollars may not be enough to to cover some emergencies. Let me know what you guys think. If you've paid off your debt, what's some advice you would give to other people? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below. That's all I have to say for now. Love you, appreciate you. Hope to see you on the next video.

[00:03:57]Bye everybody.