Wednesday 23 May 2012

Tips to Help Reduce Credit Card Debt

By Paige Thompson


To put it simply, reducing credit card debt is as easy as preventing it from increasing and by paying off what it is currently. But then people wouldn't have credit card related problems in reality if it was simple to reduce credit card debt. We can eliminate credit card debt problems or at least reduce them significantly.

The first thing you need to do is take stock of your situation. Draw up a schedule of all your credit cards, listing the balance on each, the payment due day, APR, reward points earned and any other remarks. You need to find out which card contributes the most to your debt and this will be the card with the highest balance and APR.

See if the rewards points scheme can be used to make partial payments, purchase items that you might have used the credit card to purchase, or cover fees.

There are ways to reduce credit card debt and consolidation loans is one of them. Your debt can also be reduced with the help of a balance transfer. Transferred to the card with the lowest APR is your credit card debt. The best way to reduce your debt is curbing spending on the cards while repaying the debt you already built up.

Hard earned cash is harder to get out of the pocket which is why another preventive measure to reduce credit card debt is using cash instead of card. In this way you reduce credit card debt by not adding more to it. You save money in terms of interest and other fees when you find additional sources of income to help you repay debts quicker.

Since we're used to whipping out the plastic when we shop, a considerable amount of self-discipline is needed to control spending on your credit card. There is a drastic solution: cut up all cards except one which is to be used only for emergencies. After you've paid the bills, you can only use available cash and you won't be able to use your cards.

A little a time is how you reduce credit card debt, similar to the way you built it up. Most of us have seen our credit card debt spiral over a considerable period of time - one item at a time. If you reduce the debt one payment at a time and with discipline and patience, you'll reduce or completely eliminate your debt.




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