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Credit Card Debt Freedom is Possible
By Joe Duchesne
Credit
card debt have you drowning financially? You're not alone. The average American
household carries $9,205 in credit card debt, according to CardWeb, an online
industry tracker. Not managed properly, this debt can come to eat up all of
your disposable income leaving little or nothing for bare necessities. Some
people in this situation respond by charging more but that will only get you further
in trouble.
Fail
to plan and you plan to fail
There
is this cliché that states that if you fail to plan you plan to fail. The first
thing you need to do is evaluate where you want to be. Do you want freedom from
your credit card burden? Is so, you need to develop a different action plan to
the one you are currently following. Makes sense doesn't it?
Start
by listing all of the debt you currently owe along with a list of what your
monthly obligations are for each debt. At the top of the page, list the amount
of income available to pay these debts after essentials like food, hydro,
etc... are taken out. When listing essentials, it's important to include a
certain amount for clothes, medical and entertainment because no matter how
good your intentions, you will spend some money in these areas. If you budget
ahead for them, you are less likely to just waste it.
Start
paying one credit card first
Don't
try to pay off all of your credit cards at once. Doing this will take too long
and end up discouraging you. You're better off concentrating on getting one
card paid off, then putting the money you've freed up from that one card and
applying it to the next one and so forth.
Which
credit card charges you the highest rate of interest? Start with that one. Pay
the minimum due on all of your credit cards expect for the one you have chosen
to focus on first. On that card, put as much money as your budget allows onto
the card after all of your expenses and debts have been factored in. Keep doing
this month after month until the credit card balance goes to zero.
Loose
all credit cards except one
Plan
to keep one major credit card for unexpected expenses, car rentals and
emergencies. Get rid of all your other cards as you pay them off. Most people
can't resist the temptation to spend money on a clean card. If this describes
you, you're better off without many credit cards than you are to get right back
into deep credit card debt.
Follow
this plan, and depending on how much you owe, in a year or so, you should have
pretty much achieved credit card debt freedom!
Joe
Duchesne is the webmaster of Bootdebt.com a website dedicated to helping people
with credit card debt, debt consolidation, getting out of debt and becoming
financially literate. Reprint freely as long as you keep this resource box and
include a live keyword rich link back to my website.
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