A MONEY-SMART woman has revealed how she was able to pay off almost £60k worth of debt in just two years.
Syd Richi took to YouTube to share the reason behind her success, which saw her get rid of her astronomical student loan and credit card debt.
According to the young woman, it’s all about budgeting – however, there are certain tools that make the process easier.
One of the key things to remember at the start of your financial journey is to realise that ”budgeting is not to restrict your life”.
”Some people may feel like ‘If I start to budget, I can no longer live the way I want to and spend money the way I want to’,” she said in her informative video.
Instead, she advised to look at budgeting as a ”tracker” to check your income and expenses – and it benefits everyone no matter how much cash they make.
The first step, she demonstrated, is going through your bank statement and noting down what you spend on every month – and how much money goes towards it.
Some examples include rent, any beauty treatments, bills – or even a cheeky trip to Primark.
”This will help you see where you can adjust your spending,” explained Syd, adding you may realise you need to change your internet provider – or find a different car insurance.
Once done, the money-smart YouTuber advised to create your budgeting spreadsheet – this can be done with Vertex42 that offers a number of different templates, such as Zero Based Budget Worksheet, which the whizz used.
The worksheet has a great range of spaces, each dedicated to a different category, such as your income, smaller bills, daily expenses and so on.
As you start entering the numbers for every expense you have in mind, the system will automatically show how much money you have left.
Once all the essentials have been entered, you will be left with a sum of the budget remaining – Syd used this for groceries, buying clothing or anything you’d like to treat yourself with.
If after everything you still have some money left, Syd said that’s ”a good sign” – because you have more money to allocate to debt than you initially thought you did.
This can go towards any student loans, credit card debts, car payments.
However, Syd also advised to save a little for your ”emergency fund” in case anything goes wrong in the upcoming month.
Inspired, dozens raced to comments to thank Syd, whose channel has won her close to 5k subscribers.
One said: ”I finally feel like I have some hope and I can one day be financially free.”
Another chimed in: ”Thank you so much for this! I’m trying to be more financially responsible this year.
”I’ve always had a difficulty with budgeting but you made it so easy and simple to do!”
”Great work on paying off that debt! Take a lot of discipline, dedication, and tenacity. Absolutely killer numbers! Way to go!” someone else praised Syd.
”Great video!! I’ve never been able to stick to my budget but having a zero budget worksheet maybe what I need,” a YouTuber user thanked the young woman.
