Getting Yourself Out Of Credit Card Debt

I've never really been irresponsible with money, but it's so easy to get in trouble with credit cards. I knew it was time to get my finances in order the minute I got my first call from a collection agency telling me I was in delinquency. So I looked on the web for more info to find ways to fix my problem and I found some methods on how to handle the situation.

I got a hold of all of my statements to take a look at my interest rates. I realized that I hadn't been paying attention and my rates were sky-high, practically 30% in most cases. This was totally out of control. I realized a new dining room furniture set I'd just bought at a bargain was going to cost a whole lot more than the price I paid in the store. I had about six credit cards going, with combined debt of nearly $15,000.

My reading lead me to destroy all of my cards. I grabbed a pair of tough scissors and went to town, cutting those things up into the smallest shreds. I had a lot of fun with this, cutting them this way and that, so they ended up all over the place. They ended up sucked up into my dyson upright vacuum cleaner. Putting the vacuum away, I felt totally liberated.

Next I organized my debts in order of which had the highest balance. The ones with the highest balance were to paid off first, and you pay just the minimum on the rest. This is what experts call the 'Snowball' approach to getting rid of debt. In my first payment, I wiped out one card and paid the minimum on the rest. The second month, I put a nice dent in my Mastercard bill and it went on like this for about three years. By the end of year three I had only two cards left and only about $4000 left to pay.

I still had a few thousand left to pay, so I called my creditors and asked them to lower my rates. It took a while but I finally got them to agree. All I had to do was ask, and my rates had dropped from almost 30% to only about 9%! Now it was going to be even easier to knock my debt out by reducing those finance fees.

So now I'm a savvy spender, always paying with cash, and if it cost so much I need credit, I don't need it that bad! I have two cards left open for emergencies, but the balance is firmly at zero. I won't ever go back to those bad spending habits again.

The feeling from taming your debt is so amazing. I know now I'll never get calls again from debt collectors, and I can sleep nice and easy every night on my comfy full size loft bed.

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Originally posted 2010-04-20 04:15:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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