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So you’ve applied, received a personal loan, and used it to finance something like a new car or dream wedding. When it comes to paying it back, there’s no silver bullet for doing it faster.
It’s important to check whether there are any early repayment fees chargeable on your personal loan before starting to make additional repayments. There are no early repayment fees on an ING personal loan.
However, there are things you can do to find a bit of extra money and pay down your loan more quickly. It may not seem like much, but with a few of these techniques working together you could pay off your loan much sooner.
Round up your repayment amounts
It seems like it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but by rounding your repayment amount up to the nearest $100 you will get there faster. Let’s say your repayment amount is $172. If you find room in your budget, pay off $200 instead. Even though it’s only $28 at the time, if you do this over five repayments that’s an extra $140 towards your loan. This is a relatively painless way to speed up your payback process.
Use surprise money
It doesn’t matter if it’s $20 in a birthday card or $500 from your tax return – we all love getting surprise money. Why not put it to work with your personal loan?
While you’re paying off your loan, get in the habit of putting all money that’s outside of your usual earnings (think found money, gifts, bonuses from work etc.) towards the loan repayment. Even a $5 note you find under the couch counts.
Shift leftover budget
You might consider creating multiple savings accounts with a set budget for each of your regular expenses, like groceries and bills. This way, if you’ve ended up saving money on one of your expenses for the week, you’ll be able to see how much is left over and contribute that extra amount to a personal loan repayment.
Check out a more detailed guide on how to set multiple accounts here.
Sell pre-loved items
Did you pick up playing bass guitar but then put it down to focus on another passion? Did you get a new camera as a present and still have the old one lying around? These are things that people could pay good money for.
Platforms like Gumtree and eBay are easy ways to connect with people and sell your pre-loved items to get some extra money.
Put your skills to work
This one’s for all the undercover craftsmen out there. With platforms like Airtasker you can assemble furniture, garden, clean and do all sorts of odd jobs to get an extra source of money for your loan.
Or maybe if you’ve got a car and some spare time, try out being an Uber driver. You’ll get extra pocket money and have some great conversations along the way.
Paying off early is a great option – you’ll save on the amount of interest you pay and with ING, there are no early repayment fees on personal loans. Find out more about ING personal loans and how they can help you reach your goals.
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