The sad truth of the situation is that your credit cards have to go if you are to cut the ever deeper hole of debt you're sinking into. A lot of these ''debt cards'' (credit cards just doesn't describe "em as far as I"m concerned) are pure evil and can land you in a very dark place for years and years if you're not careful.
Paying off the minimum repayments each month may make you feel good - and the companies will love you for it - but the simple fact is that the interest is building and building, leaving you trapped for what seems forever, paying tiny bits off.
Clearing a mere 2% of your debt each month will make no difference to a debt level where your card interest rate could be anything over 15%. We're talking literally decades to clear it.
The card issuers hate those brilliant people who clear their balance every month, as they don't make any money from them. They tempt them with ever higher ''credit'' (read debt) levels and some us of do give in and spend what seems like free money.
Fatal error.
These crafty guys want you to have a card (and owe them cash) forever and they will be super nice to you while they think you're a good bet for the debt - but life gets pretty hairy when you can't pay up - and all of a sudden there's late payment charges, threatening letter and calls, and interest stacked up on your interest. And no sleep for worrying. Life goes downhill really fast.
So how do we escape their grasp before it's too late? Cut up the cards today. Then start paying as much above the basic minimum as you can afford and make your cards the first set of debt you're going to clear.
That can be a hard call when everything is getting so expensive, so you could for the moment fix a basic monthly payment, that doesn't go down even as your debt starts to drop. This will cut years off your repayments.
If you can transfer your balance to a lower interest card, and there are some great deals around.
There's a fantastic site which has loads of tips for helping you out of debt, and forums on it full of people offering support and advice.
