The best strategy to erase credit card debt

by Bill A Smith

Published on this site: May 27th , 2005 - See more articles from this month...

Credit card debt is a growing sickness in the United States and Europe. It is very important to eliminate debt and take control of your financial health.

In the below section, I have listed the best strategy to erase credit card debt. This strategy is tried and true and often recommended by financial planners and debt consolidation firms.

In an Excel spreadsheet list all your credit cards, balance, credit card interest rate and minimum payment from your most recent credit card statement. If you are not computer savvy, you can list them on paper.

Sort the list in ascending order of interest rate so that the credit card with highest interest rate is at the top and the credit card with lowest interest rate is at the bottom.

Make a count of minimum payment of all the credit cards in the list you just created.

Now calculate how much money you can save to pay off your credit card debt and become debt free. If you cannot pay off more than the minimum payment, it is time to do some budgeting to save more and pay towards your credit cards.

Each month pay off the minimum on all your credit cards. However, on
the credit card with the highest interest rate, pay the minimum plus the additional amount you have saved to pay off your credit card debt.

Continue to follow this strategy until the credit card with highest interest rate is completely paid off. In a similar manner, work on paying off your second credit card but remember to make minimum payments on the remaining cards.

Besides the above golden strategy, you can call your credit card companies to request for a lower interest rate. Due to stiff competition, many of the credit card companies will readily agree. Lower interest rates mean you can pay off your debt much faster.

In some cases, credit card companies will not be willing to reduce your interest rate. This might be a good time to hop on the internet and do some research on credit cards and get a new low interest card. Many companies will allow you an introductory rate for your new credit card.

Bill Smith http://www.ameridebtservices.com/