Hi friends, thanks for downloading the Money Girl Podcast.

I'm Laura Adams, the author of Moneygirls Smart Moves to Grow Rich.

If you're like most people, you want to ditch your debt as quickly as possible without having to take a second or third job.

Having too much debt can be a real burden that holds you back from improving your financial

life.

When it comes to getting out of debt, there are three basic strategies.

Number one, don't increase it. Number two, reduce the interest rate.

And three, reduce the principal balance.

In this podcast, I'll cover specific... reduce the principal balance.

In this podcast, I'll cover specific tactics to reduce the interest rate on your debt.

And next time, you'll learn how to reduce your principal balances.

The interest rate is the cost of borrowing money. It's the amount

you're charged in addition to the principal amount you borrow. And it depends on

several factors including the current market interest rates, your credit score, the length of the loan, the amount you borrow, and the type of credit account.

Say you get a car loan for $20,000 with a 15% interest rate over a five-year term.

Your monthly payment would be about $475.

If you got that same loan at 6% interest instead of 15, your payment would be

about $385 saving you $90 a month or more than $5,000 over the life of the loan. Think about what you could

do with that money. If you invested $90 a month for five years and never added another penny to the account,

you'd have over $30,000 in 20 years, assuming an 8% average annual rate of return. So how do you reduce the

interest rate on a loan that you already have? Well one way is to refinance it.

Refinancing allows you to replace Well, one way is to refinance it.

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