Take Control of Your Credit Card Debt - Get Out and Stay Out of Debt

Written by A Guest Speaker on May 19th, 2008

Take Control of Your Credit Card Debt - Get Out and Stay Out of Debt
Written by Jason From Best Premium Card

My family hasn’t had any credit card debt in a long time. My dad always said that the only thing worse than paying bills is not being able to pay them. My grandfather said the same thing.

Credit cards can be great for convenience, and certain cards offer excellent rewards and benefits. But you need to pay your balance in full every month, and you shouldn’t let rewards cards entice you to spend more. If you’re not paying off your balance in full, your debts are slowly building up interest that make them harder and harder to pay off. If you continue on this path, your credit card debt will eventually come back to bite you in the rear.

That said, having credit card debt isn’t the absolute end of the world. I can’t find the exact statistics, but the average American IS in debt because of excessive spending on credit cards. There are a few steps you can take to slowly get rid of your credit card debt and then make sure you don’t fall back in the trap of not paying your balance in full. I’m not a financial expert and haven’t had any experience with credit card debt—this is just what I would do.

Figure out how much money you’re currently spending each month and what you’re spending it on.
Try to cut expenses so you can pay more than the minimum balance on your credit card/s each month. How much more you pay than the minimum depends on how much you can afford to pay, and how fast you want to get your debt paid off.
Make sure to pay each bill promptly; your debt accumulates every day that it’s not paid off.
Quit spending money on cards with high annual interest rates.

There are other things you can do such as consolidate your cards or take out a home equity line of credit to pay off your debt. But I don’t have any experience with these things, so I’d recommend you do a lot of research before going down this path.

Once you decide to make a change and eliminate credit card debt from your life, you’ll have to change your mindset and how you think about credit. People who manage their finances wisely see credit cards as short-term loans that should be paid off at the end of each month. If you’re using credit cards as a way to shop while not feeling like you’re spending any money, this is the wrong mindset. Take control of your credit card debt today and start making improvements one step at a time.

When you have your credit card debt under control, and are looking for a new card, there are a variety of cards with great rewards to choose one. If you’re looking for one without an annual fee, I recommend the Chase Freedom Visa Signature Card. This card gives you a $50 cash bonus after your first purchase and you can choose between cash back and points rewards—and switch between the two whenever you want. You also get triple rewards for purchases in your top 3 categories each month. No need to worry about figuring out what those categories are—Chase figures it out for you automatically.

If you’d like to read more about credit card rewards and experiences visit Best Premium Card’s Blog (http://www.bestpremiumcard.com/blog). But only after you have your credit card debt under control.