Pay your bill and never borrow money again.....................you can have it when you can pay for it.
Use a credit counseling service to lower your bill and get on an affordable monthly payment schedule to become debt free.
Consolidate your debt into one monthly payment. AND STICK TO IT AND INCUR NO MORE DEBT. There are only 10% of Americans who can manage debt responsibly.
Pay more than the minimum payment. I've never had a credit card so I don't have to worry about it but my husband has a few. On his personal credit card he pays off the balance weekly. He has four others which he maxed out to start a business but he paid all of them off even though he says if he could go back and do it over again he wouldn't have done it that way.
Anyway, on the bottom of the statement there's something that says that if you make the minimum payment it will take 30 years to pay them off but if you send just a little more than the minimum payment it only takes three years to pay them off so Hubby paid off those four credit cards in two years just by sending more than the minimum payment and not using them for anything else.
Live within your means. I agree with all the other answers above.
You could also choose to become more conscious of how you spend. Start a small portable cash book. Keep it with you. Write down every single cost no matter how small. Do this for a month. After a month, examine your patterns and how things add up. A. -Multiply the amount you spent by 12 to get the average for a year. B. -Go through your files and receipts. Work out your annual, quarterly, monthly and other expenses. C. -Add this to your figure from A. D. -Get hold of the current rate of inflation, add 2%. Calculate this percentage and add it to your total costs to estimate how much the coming year will cost.
Work out which expenses are essential, and which ones (like alcohol, cigarettes, movies, fast foods, restaurants, cafés) are not absolutely necessary. See if cutting out those things would free up enough money to pay off your debts.
If it's not, then you need to create a cheaper lifestyle (cheaper rent or mortgage, cheaper car, or no car), hobbies that don't cost money.) Or you need to get work that pays better.
But definitely cut up the cards and pay off the debts. It's madness to pay so much more for things than they are actually worth. Debit cards are a much better way to live within one's means.
Rob the bank that's been robbing you by charging you 35% interest on the things you buy on credit cards, given that they pay only .05 % percent interest on your saving they are keeping safe for you.... Your money actually loose's value by keeping it in a bank... :(
Some big brand credit and store cards charge 39% here in England.... we have payday loan companies that charge 4000% interest and government does nothing to stop them.... For the bottom earners that do the most appalling and so nessassary dirty essential jobs ....no one seems to care about them at all... Those that abuse there workers and keep them on the bred line should all be made to suffer........ It amazes me why any one would go to work for these companies in the first place....
I like Dave Ramsey's way. If you haven't heard of him, he's a pretty awesome financial guru that has a radio show, books, etc. and a full program. Basically, you go to town on whatever card has the smallest balance. When that's paid off, you apply everything you can to the next smallest balance. You continue until you're all paid off and have savings. He calls it the Snowball Plan.
A lot of people will try to do the "smart" thing by paying off the card with the highest interest first, but it's hard to make progress that way- people get demotivated because they don't see progress. Getting something paid off makes you feel accomplished and good, so you're more likely to stick with your program.
It also helps train you to be better with money. People usually start off slow, but once they have a couple successes under their belts, they get really excited about generating results, so they become better spenders and find more ways to knock out their debt- selling stuff, getting second jobs, and so forth.
The trouble with debt consolidation is that most companies just negotiate better rates for you with your company or settle on the debt. It hurts your credit and you could do your own negotiating. You don't need them. Personal loans can work, but it doesn't change the mechanisms that got you into debt in the first place, so chances are, you'll wind up in debt again, but then you'll have a big personal loan and credit card debt on top of it.
I, personally, think bankruptcy is a viable option in some cases as well. If you're at a point where your credit is already taking a hit or you can't live once you've paid your debts, and it's going to take more time to pay the debt off than it would to recover from a bankruptcy, it makes sense. Again, though, it doesn't address the mechanisms behind the debt, so taking a training course, workshop, or entering a program to teach better fiscal management is essential.
Deactivate the card so that it's not linked to any sort of stored online payments or auto-pays. Run the cards through a shredder. Make payments above the minimum required amount. If you're talking multiple cards with maxed out balances look into credit counseling and see if debt consolidation might not offer you up some relief. The most important thing though is to cease all use. Can't stop a fire if you keep throwing gas on it.
Nice Jugs 