Free Debt Thermometer Printable PDF Template

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Download your free debt thermometer printable to stay motivated to pay off your debt!

A debt thermometer is a great tool to use when you are trying to get out of debt. It’s a simple, yet effective way to track your debt payoff progress while staying motivated to keep moving toward your goal of becoming debt-free.

If you’ve been working on paying off debt or are ready to get started, I highly encourage you to use a debt thermometer. It helped my family to stay motivated when we were paying off over $70K of debt and I know it can do the same for you.

If you’re not familiar with a debt thermometer, let me explain…

What is a Debt Thermometer

A debt thermometer is a visual representation of your debt and your payoff progress. The entire thermometer represents how much debt you have and allows you to record and track how much debt you have paid off and how much is remaining.

As you pay off debt, you fill in your debt thermometer and as the mercury rises, or in this case, you pay off more and more debt, you see the progress you are making which is super motivating to keep going.

Why Use A Debt Thermometer

There are many reasons to use a debt thermometer. The most obvious is to help you track your progress as you move along your debt payoff journey.

And even though you can do this in a notebook, or debt tracking spreadsheet. There’s no better feeling than to shade in your debt thermometer every time you send a payment to your debtors, knowing that you are getting closer and closer to reaching your goals.

Here are a few more reasons why seeing your progress is super important…

It’s a visual reminder of your goals

Having a goal to pay off debt is great, but there’s nothing more helpful than having a visual reminder of what you’re working so hard to achieve. It’s a great way to “keep your eye on the prize” so to speak.

Increases motivation

Tracking your progress in anything you do is super motivational and this is no different. Just the act of filling in your debt thermometer and seeing the progress you’ve already made is a great way to keep moving forward.

Makes your debt payoff goal real

Paying off debt is simply the act of paying bills which all of us have to do on a weekly and monthly basis and sending in a large payment to reduce your debt is just more of the same.

But when you fill in your debt thermometer on a regular basis and can see it daily, it gives you that sense of accomplishment that you are getting closer and closer to your goal.

Keeps everyone on the same page

You may be looking for a way to track your debt payoff because you are the one who takes care of the finances in your household.

But just because you make the payments, doesn’t mean that you are solely responsible for the debt so having a visual reminder that everyone can see helps to keep everyone in the loop and working toward a collective goal.

How To Use A Debt Thermometer

Using a debt thermometer is simple enough and really doesn’t require much work to maintain once you’ve set it up besides filling it in as you make debt payments (and maybe a little happy dance along the way 😀 )

1. Download and print the free debt thermometer printable PDF template below.

2. Enter the total debt you need to repay on the top of the printable. If you are unsure of the number, you can use the debt overview worksheet to collect your information.

3. Figure out how much 10% of your total debt is by dividing your total debt by 10 (ex: 25000 total debt divided by 10 = $2,500) and mark each line of the debt thermometer by that amount. So at 10%, you’d write $2500, then at the 20% mark, you’d write down $5000, then $7500 at the 30% mark, and so on.

4. Fill in your debt thermometer every time you hit another 10% of debt paid.

5. Celebrate your accomplishment in a fiscally responsible way!!

Pretty simple yet so inspiring and motivating to keep at it. You can even print one debt tracker to use for each of your debts to see how you’re progressing in more detail.

This works especially well if you are following the debt snowball method popularized by Dave Ramsey.

Free Debt Thermometer Download

Tap here or the image below to sign up and grab your free debt thermometer as well as a few other printables to help track your progress in your journey to debt freedom.

debt thermometer graphic

Tips To Help Get Out Of Debt Faster

Lower your interest rates

One of the biggest reasons getting out of debt is so hard is because of the high-interest rate we are charged. So, getting your interest rates reduced, even by just a few percentage points can really speed things along.

One easy way to do this is to consolidate your debts into a lower-interest-rate loan. If your credit is in decent shape, taking a personal loan at your bank may be the option.

If your credit is not so great, there are still companies like PayOff that can help consolidate your debts and lower the amount of interest you pay every month.

Reduce your expenses

When trying to pay off debt, reducing your expenses should be a top priority. Go through all your expenses and look for things that you really don’t need or want and get rid of them.

Of course, there are some things that you just can’t do without but that doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to pay less. Shop around for better rates, bundle services or simply ask if there are cheaper plans, can really help to reduce the amount you pay for fixed expenses.

Find cheaper alternatives

Finding cheaper alternatives for the things you pay for on a regular basis is one of my favorite ways to find more money in our budget.

It allows you to still get what you want and need without making huge sacrifices. For example, we didn’t really want to give up cable when we were paying off debt but knew it was a huge waste of money.

So instead we did our research and found a cable tv alternative that allowed us to still watch tv while saving almost $1000 a year.

Little tweaks like this allowed us to still get what we wanted without feeling deprived which is really what we all want.

No spend challenge

If you are looking to save money quickly to pay down debt, then you’ve got to try a no-spend challenge. If you’ve never heard of this type of challenge, it’s basically when you commit to not spending any money except to pay your bills for an entire month or any other time frame you choose.

As you can imagine, this could really help you save quite a bit of money fast to pay off debt. Another alternative to the no-spend challenge is doing a pantry challenge where your meal plan around food you already have on hand saves money.

Say Money Affirmations Daily

Money affirmations are a great way to improve your finances and break limiting beliefs so you can reach whatever financial goals you have.

Saying these money mantras is especially helpful when in debt to change your mindset from feeling down and out about how long it’ll take to pay off your debt to have the positive mindset to do what you need to do to become debt-free.

Debt Thermometer Conclusion

As you can see, there are many good reasons to use a debt thermometer to track your debt payoff progress. And if you ask me, every little bit of inspiration and motivation helps!

So download your free printable debt thermometer PDF templates today so you can reap the benefits of this amazing tool and ultimately live your life without debt hanging over your head!!