Reduce Your Credit Card Debt
If you are one of the many North Americans that has credit card debt, you know how easy it can be to get deeper and deeper in the hole. The most common way to get yourself into trouble with your credit cards is by not paying the full amount each month when the bill arrives.
Now after many months have gone by, you find yourself in debt. $2000, $5000, $10,000 and maybe more. So now you try your best to get out of debt, but the interest rates are killing you. $100 or more of your monthly credit card bill could be interest alone. What do about this? Call your credit card company.
That’s right. Call them up. Tell them you are working hard to pay off your credit cards and would like to ask them for a little help. You are a good customer, always make your payments and can they please do you a favor and lower your interest rate.
Don’t let them wiggle out of it. Keep asking. Do not be offensive or angry when you ask. Politely state your case and when push comes to shove, ask them if they could possibly give you a break on a lower interest rate. A few percentage points can make a massive difference in the length of time it takes to pay off your debt.
For example. Your credit card balance is $7,500 and you pay a monthly rate of 16 percent. Your monthly payments are $250. On this schedule, you will have your bill paid off. In three and a quarter years! And your interest that you will have paid out in that time is over $2100.
Now, let’s say you call your credit card company and negotiate an interest rate of 12% instead of 16%. Now, it will take you 36 months to pay off your debt and your total interest payments will be $1461.55, saving you around $700 in debt. If you can manage to pay $300 a month the results are even better. You will pay off your debt in only 29 months and pay $1173.66 in interest!
Do not fall into the trap of paying only the minimum. If you pay the minimum each month at the same interest rate we started with, you will see that it will take DECADES to pay off your debt and the interest you will end up paying….well…you could be a compact car with it.
Learn more about debt reduction. Stop by my site site where you can find out all about credit card and debt reduction strategies and what it can do for you. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service