Effective steps to repay your personal loan

livemint.com:

—Name withheld on requestPersonal and credit card loans are the worst financial mistakes that one can undertake, especially if the loan is used for buying depreciating assets or on discerning expenses like holidays and/or luxury goods.At the age of 29, it is imperative that you ensure that your monthly income leads to some financial savings that help in liquidity management and avoid paying hefty interest expenses.As a thumb rule, we recommend at least 20% savings in financial instruments and not more than 50% of equated monthly instalments (EMIs).At an income of ₹59,000 and a personal loan of ₹3.6 lakh, my suggestions would be as follows:1) I would strongly recommend that you start setting aside at least ₹4,000 a month, and if possible more, for repaying the personal loan.2) If you have any large non-equity investments like bonds or fixed deposits, it is wise to immediately sell those and pay off the loan as the returns from non-equity investments would surely be much lower.3) Additional inflows and bonuses should go towards paying off the loan as most investment investments like equities generate volatile returns and pre-tax, while this is a certain and a post-tax outflow.

Please do remove any short-term goals from this while you repay this, especially any goal over the next 12-24 months.4) Please reduce your systematic investment plan (SIP) investments if needed to some extent, and with the savings on interest, the amount can be invested into SIPs.5) Please try and cut down on discerning expenses until the loan is largely cleared as practically every day the loan burdens your expenses and effectively you are borrowing money for spending, which is a terrible financial blunder.6) Ensure you list down all your financial