6 Fun Ways to Stay Motivated on Your Debt Payoff Journey
- Having some fun could help you stay motivated to keep making progress against your debt.
- Visualize your progress by tracking it with physical representations of your debt payoff. You could make a paper chain, or color in a thermometer as you work up toward your goal.
- Gamify the process. Assign yourself video game-style levels for milestones, or compete with friends/family to see who can have more no-spend days.
- Find your personal motivator. Everyone’s debt payoff journey is unique. Figure out what keeps you motivated.
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Paying off debt can make your financial life a lot better, but it can be a hard process. There are lots of different ways you can approach it, depending on your situation.
If you are in over your head in debt, you can work with a debt relief company or pursue credit counseling. If you have a more manageable amount of debt, you can make a payoff plan on your own.
Even with the best plan, becoming debt-free can take time, and we all need a little motivation to stick with it. There are ways to make it easier to remain committed to your debt payoff plan.
Making debt payoff more fun is one of those ways. If you're interested in making debt payoff feel a little more enjoyable, here are some ideas to help you do that.
1. Use a Visual Tracker to See Your Progress
Paying off debt can feel frustrating because it sometimes takes a long time to bring your balance to $0.
As you make monthly payments, you make progress toward your goal. However, that progress doesn't always feel very real or meaningful when you're just seeing numbers go down on a loan or credit card statement.
If you can create a real-world visual tracker that shows your progress, you are much more likely to stay the course on your debt payoff journey. You can do this by:
Building a Lego tower or Jenga Block tower that represents your debt. You can build a tower that represents what you owe and remove Legos for each $10 or $100 or $500 that you pay off so you can watch the tower get smaller.
Create a paper chain. Each paper link can represent some amount of debt you have paid down.
Draw a thermometer that represents your total debt amount and color it in as you get closer to paying off your full debt balance
By monitoring how much you've accomplished in a tangible way, you'll be able to see how your efforts are paying off.
2. Play Debt Bingo
Gamifying your debt also makes it easier to stay the course on payoff.
Whether you are working on paying off credit card debt, getting rid of other loans, or trying to eliminate medical debt, making it into a game can make the process enjoyable.
Making a debt bingo card is a great way to do that. You can create a bingo card that includes different amounts of extra payments, such as $50, $75, or $100. Each time you make an extra payment on your card, mark it off. Once you get bingo, treat yourself to a small splurge.
3. Give Your Payoff Efforts a Video Game Theme
If you're a gamer, assign yourself different levels that represent different phases of debt payoff, such as:
Apprentice: Paid off your first $50
Fighter: Paid off your first $500
Ninja: Paid off your first $1,000
As you accomplish each milestone and advance to a different level, you can cross off the previous one or get small rewards, like a fancy coffee or a dinner out at an affordable local restaurant.
4. Make It a Contest
Some light-hearted and fun competition could help you take your debt payoff to new heights—or help you stick to other frugal habits that free up more money for paying down your balance.
You can run the contest with yourself, with your partner, or with friends or family if you are each working toward financial goals. Some good examples include seeing who can:
Go the longest without spending money (put the extra cash you have left over toward your debt)
Have the most no-spend days during the month (again, redirect the extra funds toward debt payoff)
Pay the most extra toward your debt during the month
Of course, if you and the others are starting from different places financially, you'll want to make the contest fair and fun for everyone. If you have different levels of income, for example, you could compete to see who pays the largest percentage of their monthly income toward debt.
5. Track Your Progress in a Playlist
If you're a music lover, make a special debt-free playlist and add one upbeat song each time you make an extra payment on your debt. You can create a soundtrack that measures your progress and listen to it when you want to stay motivated.
6. Visualize What You're Working Toward
Remember, the goal of becoming debt-free is to improve your financial situation. So, find a way to visually remind yourself of that.
If your goal is to retire early and live on the beach, for example, you could print out a different picture of your favorite beach destination each time you hit a major milestone on your debt. Pin up the picture to remind yourself that each step you take toward paying off your debt is a step toward your dream.
Find the Debt-Payoff Method That Works for You
Ultimately, everyone's debt-payoff journey is their own, and you'll need to find both a system that works for you as well as the tricks that keep you motivated.
For example, while some people prefer the debt snowball method of paying off the lowest balance first so they can score quick wins early in the process, others prefer the debt avalanche method of paying off the highest interest debt first to save more money.
By considering what will help you make the most progress and putting those plans in place, you can achieve your debt-free date ASAP. Then you can say goodbye to your creditors and start using more of your money for other things.
Author Information
Written by
Kimberly Rotter
Kimberly Rotter is a financial counselor and consumer credit expert who helps people with average or low incomes discover how to create wealth and opportunities. She’s a veteran writer and editor who has spent more than 30 years creating thousands of hours of educational content in every possible format.
Reviewed by
Christy Bieber
Christy Bieber has been writing about personal finance and law for 16 years. She has a JD from UCLA School of Law with a focus on business law, and a BA in English, Media & Communications from the University of Rochester, as well as a Certificate of Business Administration.
How can you stay motivated when paying down debt?
When paying down debt, you can keep yourself motivated by tracking your progress and by making debt payoff into a game. Find a visual way to track your payoff, play debt bingo, or treat paying off debt like a video game where you advance to new levels (and unlock bonus rewards for yourself) each time you hit a new milestone.
How can you gamify paying off debt?
There are many ways to gamify debt payoff. You can play debt bingo, where your bingo card has a square of different amounts that you mark off each time you make an extra payment. When you get bingo, you can get yourself a reward. You can also have a contest with a friend to see who can make the most extra payments per month, or build a Lego or Jenga tower to symbolize your payoff progress.
How should you celebrate debt payoff?
You can celebrate debt payoff by making a plan for your future financial success. Decide what you want to do with the money you were using toward the debt that will help you to achieve your other important financial goals.