Waaaaaay back in Carnival of Debt Reduction #1, No Credit Needed was still in debt. His post for the premiere installment outlined his debt reduction strategies. His strategies were pretty simple:

1. Collect your debt information and list the balances, annual percentage rates (APRs), and minimum payments.
2. Go through your budget to see how much above and beyond the minimums you can throw at the debts.
3. Apply the extra payment to either the debt with the highest APR or to the debt with the lowest balance.
4. “Snowball” the payment from one to the next as the loans are paid off.

NCN chose to knock out the lowest-balance debt first rather than attack the debt with the highest APR, even though it ended up taking a little bit longer to pay off everything. But this is the main point: NCN eventually paid off all of his debts because he worked his debt reduction plan. The debt is gone, regardless of how he got there. He chose to reduce the number of debts faster than the overall balance. It’s a really good feeling to watch a balance go down to zero, and he saw that sooner rather than later.

Plan your debt reduction work, and then work your debt reduction plan!

• Welcome to this week's Carnival Welcome to this week's Carnival of Debt Reduction!  Personal debt reduction stories are up top. Do you have debt reduction questions?  Ask them at Cash Commons! Live Real, Now shares updates on most expenses, and talks about how he gets his bill payment amounts reduced. Steadfast Finances has a good......
• Flashback: Have a plan for your debt-free life Savvy Saver hosted Carnival of Debt Reduction #35, and this week's flashback comes from Debt Sense: Once the bad debt's gone, then what? What a great question to ask! It's so easy to get immersed in the debt reduction swing of things that once the debt is gone and there's......

• We Went to Our Accountant to Get Our Taxes Done This past Saturday we bundled everyone up and went off to our accountant to have our taxes done. (Yup, we brought the kids. They're tax deductions after all).We go to a CPA that was recommended to us a few years back. He's great to visit. He takes his time to......
• When Calculating Life Insurance You Are Replacing Two Incomes! Purchasing life insurance is a bigger discussion than just replacing one income...sometimes you have to replace two! Over the years I have watched a lot of my favorite personal finance bloggers talk about calculating life insurance need, and I never understood why their calculations only take into account replacing one......