Most Australians have Debt, it’s a fact. In these 7 steps David Naylor from Chan & Naylor explains some verysimple strategies that have worked for him and have helped him accelerate his wealth without costing a penny.

1. I prepared a personal family Budget and paid attention to the detail, I was surprised how quickly I was spending money because I was not paying attention. I also found out that Australia is an expensive country to live in. I put pen to paper to work out where my income was coming and what were my weekly and monthly expenses, basically what it cost me to live. It then allowed me to look at excessive spending and what areas could be cut back or reduced and allowed me to work out what I could put aside as if it was ‘OUT OF BOUNDS’ from a spending point of view. I sit down on a regular basis to review this and opened a separate Account to place these excess funds out of harms way and I watched the balance grow.

2. I contacted various Banks and asked for a discount on my current mortgage rates. I armed myself with competitors rates and used that as leverage and the threat of moving. Believe me, one five minute phone call saved me thousands… I have done it successfully on numerous occasions.

3. Commentators use the term good Debt (being debt that is tax deductible for example i.e. interest paid on an investment property loan) and Bad Debt (debt that the interest is not tax deductible i.e. your home Loan). I Focused on reducing the bad debt that is not deductible i.e. my personal home loan, credit card or car and make sure my Investment loans are interest only facilities. This will still increase my overall Equity but the tax benefits will help me improve my cash flow which in turn will allow me to either invest further or access the increased equity in later life.

4. I pay my mortgages on a weekly or fortnightly basis, after all the banks calculate interest daily! ….who made the rules that you have to pay monthly? I contacted my bank and requested that I pay the repayments on a more regular basis…once again one phone call and its done and saved me thousands in interest over a loan period.

5. I use my credit card sensibly and use and manage the credit terms on offer versus borrowing. For example if my credit card cycle is the 20th of the month I defer payments till the 21st if possible which will gives me potentially up to 50 days before actual payment is due all interest free…not bad trading terms.

6. I created an offset account so that any surplus funds are offset against my mortgage to reduce and save the interest.

7. I have Shares and Investment properties that are negatively geared so I arrange a PAYG variation at the beginning of each year, this basically means that rather than wait till the end of the year to get a tax refund my weekly, fortnightly or monthly pay-packet are automatically increased by the refund amount . I can now use this extra cash to pay off the home loan or add to my investment portfolio.

Information sourced from www.chan-naylor.com.au