Most people want to get rid of credit card debt, but don't want to change their habits. So what do they do? They find the easiest way out, which is often rolling all that debt into a home mortgage. Then they start charging up those credit cards all over again. The result? That easy way out just put them into more debt than ever.
The point is clear. If you don't change your habits, it won't help much to get rid of that debt. We will assume then that you have stopped creating more debt, and you understand that paying credit card balances with a consolidation loan or rolling it into a mortgage isn't paying it off. Actually, paying a lower interest rate, but paying for many more years, usually means paying much more interest, not less.
Eliminating Credit Card Debt
Okay, you have changed your ways and you really want to be rid of that credit card debt. First, you need to find and budget the money to start paying down those balances. A pizza delivery per week, for example, could be cut out to have $60 or $80 per month to apply to the debt. Why not eat $4 frozen pizzas for now.
Not sure where to find the money? List everything you spend for a month. You'll see clearly where you can rearrange your priorities. Just do what you have to do, and budget some money to apply towards the debt each month.
Let's suppose you have $300 per month to pay off your credit card balances, and you have four credit cards. The minimum payment on each is $45 or so. You could just divide your budget four ways, and pay $75 on each card every month, right?
Wrong. Not all debt is equal. Pay the minimum on all cards but one, and apply the rest of the budget to the one with the highest interest rate. $45 on each of the three cards leaves $165 to apply towards the fourth - the one with the highest interest rate. Do this until this card debt is paid in full.
When the high-interest card is paid off, maintain the $300 budget. Pay the minimums on the two lower interest cards, and the rest on the one with the highest interest rate. That's $210 per month on that one now, so the debt will start going down more quickly.
Continue this process, and soon you'll be paying $300 every month on your last credit card, knocking down that balance quickly. Meanwhile, if you can transfer balances to lower-interest cards, do it - but keep paying $300 per month total, and keep allocating it first to the highest rate cards. This is the most efficient way to eliminate that credit card debt.
By: Steve Gillman