When the economy or personal issues and problems result in a high credit card debt, we often find our debt spread over three or four or more cards. So you may have a Visa, several MasterCards, and a Discover card with maybe many more each carrying several thousands of dollars of debt. The result is an ugly parade of bills from each company each demanding a minimum payment that pays the interest and takes just a small amount off of your debt.
If it seems that the debt mountain never seems to go down, that’s not an illusion. The situation is not designed to help you get that debt down. It’s a cruel mixed message the credit industry sends us because if you have high credit card debt, your credit rating goes down. But even if you have too much debt, the credit card companies just keep raising your credit ceiling and sending more and more credit card offers to lure you into more debt.
The instinct is to keep taking out more accounts and transferring money to those deceptive zero percent offers that expire in a matter of months and leave you with yet another bill to pay that only makes managing that debt even more impossible. If you do get a little money ahead, the instinct is also to pay more down on the debts that have the highest interest rates to try to slow the erosion of your finances due to high rates.
But there is another approach to handling this debt that goes completely opposite your instincts and gives more control to you to begin seeing headway against those debts. But to use this approach, you will have to think with your head, not your emotions and not panic but think about how to get as much principle paid down as possible. This inside out approach to paying down your credit cards is simple and gives you a roadmap to freedom from debt.
First of all, stop taking out more accounts. That only gives another credit card company access to your money. They can charge you membership fees and try to lure you with credit insurance. If you have three or more credit resources already, that’s plenty.
Second, use short term offers wisely. If one of your existing accounts offers you a zero percent deal for a few months, take it but transfer a small amount to that account. Then you can focus on paying off that transferred amount and see 100% of your payment go against principle which is the fastest way out of debt.
Third, pick a card and pay it off. It might be the card with the lowest balance which is one you might give the least to so you can respond to the higher level debts. But if you pay that card off, that is one less bill coming in each month and it gives you a great feeling to know you are slowly killing off the monster of credit card debt one card at time.
That brings us to the cornerstone of the inside out method. Instead of paying on the card with the highest interest rate, pay them the minimum payment and put your excess funds against the cards with the lowest rate. In this way you are getting the most bang for your buck with the small amount of extra funds you may have to pay on the debt. That debt will go down more quickly and then you can attack the bigger accounts and begin to whittle away at them too. And by using a smart approach to the credit card debt you have, you take control of the problem and put it on a program to go away. And that will be the greatest feeling of them all.
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If you have found yourself living with credit card debt then you are not alone; the ease with which they can be used had to cause problems at some point. Very few people that can say they owe nothing on them and as a consequence these finance companies are now owed thousands of dollars on most of the cards that have been issued, unfortunately people are only now beginning to realize that the damage has been done. The easiest action to take is to arrange credit card debt relief whilst you are still in a position too.
At this point it is important to start as you mean to go on and stop all spending on the card otherwise it will make arranging a debt relief plan much harder to implement. Delay can mean ensuring whatever credit card debt relief solution you want to proceed with is made more difficult. There are various debt consolidation alternatives available but the three most common options are detailed below.
The most obvious move to start with is where the debtor is in a position to pay back the debt; they can opt for debt consolidation with a credit card that charges low interest and clear off the single debt in installments every month. A good alternative to this option is a consolidation loan at a low interest rate where the debtor can decide exactly how much they can afford to repay every month after the outstanding debts have been cleared.
This option does require a certain willingness on the part of the person in debt to be strict about the payments and the regularity in which they are made if they really want to end the debt problem. Remember, consolidation by card or loan will only work if the debtor has not already damaged their credit history.
There are times when credit card debt relief is not possible by this route and it is left to negotiation, often by a specialist company. Normally, when these negotiations proceed approximately half the debt will need to be paid and the remainder to be written off by the creditors.
Bankruptcy should always be viewed as a last resort when all other options have been tried as there are serious consequences to this course of action. Whilst this final option may at first appear to be the best it means credit in any form will be difficult if not impossible for a very long time until the credit history starts to build once again in a positive manner. Credit card debt relief should not be something you ever repeat because it will mean you haven't learnt anything from your experience.
credit card companies suck.
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