How to Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt

How to Pay Down Your Credit Card Debt

by J. Richard Shanley

Credit card debt hampers our lives. It gets in the way of our days, it interrupts our blissful nights, and it destroys our futures. How can you save for tomorrow when you have tens of thousands of dollars of debt to pay for first? The answer is simple: you can't. You need to eliminate your credit card debt in order to pave the way for a more tranquil, more secure future.
Why Eliminate Credit Card Debt?

You may think that your monthly payment to your credit cards are low. Why should you spend my hard-earned dollars getting rid of it? The answer is simple: The sooner you rid yourself of credit card debt, the sooner you can enjoy your life to its fullest.

It should not be that difficult to convince you to pay off your credit card debt immediately.

Let's take a look at what happens when you carry a balance on your credit card. Let's say that you owe the company $12,000. Assume you are paying back the debt at 12% interest. If you pay the minimum monthly payments, it will take 256 months to eliminate the debt. That's over 22 years! Twenty-two years! In that time, you will have paid an additional $6,500 in interest. (Please note: Even if your interest rate is considerably lower, it still takes years to pay off your payments. AND you will pay thousands of dollars in interest payments. That's money wasted!)

Ouch. Often time, the minimum payment is the only payment that individuals can afford. It is that minimum payment, though, that continues the vicious cycle of credit card debt. Credit cards--and minimum payments--keep you in financial bondage.

Now, if you were able to find a way to add an extra $100 to that payment, guess what happens? You would be able to cut the life of that loan by 19 years. Additionally, you would save over $5,000 in interest payments. Although for some, it is impossible to find an extra $100/month, for most is simply not that difficult. One-hundred dollars a month is less than spending 4 hours a week at a part time job.

It is that simple.

How Can I Find The Extra Money?

As I have just stated, it is not that hard to come up with an extra $100/month. You can find part-time work on the weekends. You can sell stuff on ebay. You can sell stuff at a garage sale. You can babysit during the weeknights or weekends for friends and neighbors. Deliver pizzas. Work at a coffee shop. You can cut out the vices and trouble spots in your budget that only prove to be a financial drain. There are more than a million ways to make an extra $1200/year.

The interesting part about it: Once you start making more money and once you start paying down that debt, you are not going to want to stop. So, take the important first steps and figure out a plan to pay down your debt and get your financial life in order.