Pay more than the minimum payment each month,
if you ever hope to pay off your credit card debt. You must also
pay on time or a finance charge will be added onto
the total, creating a larger minimum payment for the next month -- and a
larger finance charge added to the total again if you don't pay it.
2. Get a system for
credit card debt reduction.
You need your own deadline each month for paying bills. There are great
software programs for keeping track of your financial records (and even
writing checks). Quicken, by Intuit, is a popular money-management
program. So is Microsoft's Managing Your Money.
3. Negotiate with credit card companies.
The amount of credit card debt
in this country has made creditors realize that if they don't want
people backing down from their obligations completely (in other words,
if they want to get any money back), they have to make deals,
like these:
Scenario One: You tell the company's collection
department that you're having financial difficulties and need to have
your interest rate lowered, simple as that. They say, "What can you
manage?" You tell them. (I recently got one account to lower my rate to
10 percent and cut off future finance charges.)
Scenario Two: A
credit card company has
offered to pay off all your old credit card debt at nine percent if you
switch. Call your old companies and tell them the deal you've been
offered; ask if they can do better, and go with whichever is lowest.