Manage but Don’t Be Managed by Credit
The epidemic of credit card debt in the last five years would make you believe that credit cards are a bad thing. By themselves, credit cards are not bad. They not only can be a tremendous convenience, in many situations a credit card is absolutely essential. And building a good credit history and reputation is just one of the ways you go about establishing yourself as a viable financial entity in our society.
But like everything else in life, you can handle credit well or handle it poorly. It is when you start being pushed around and living in slavery to your credit card debt that you start to feel like a victim. So to regain control over your financial life, you have to manage your credit cards and the debt you owe there and don’t let it be the boss of you.
The number one rule of managing your credit card debt is to eliminate fees and any charges other than the interest rate itself. So you must make it a hard and fast rule never to be late on a payment. Being late is a disaster not just because the credit card company will tack on another $30-$50 fee to your debt for a late payment. Being late on a payment is also an alarm to the credit card companies that can set them off raising your rates, demanding excessively high minimum payment levels and passing along negative reports about your credit score.
To make sure you are never late, keep a good tracking system going every day so you know what credit card payments you have coming in and when they will come due. Then you can look at your income and begin to balance what you are making with what you need to come up with to at least make a minimum payment on each card. Now, many credit card management articles and advisors say never pay the minimum payment. This is bad advice. There is one situation where you not only should but must make at least the minimum payment and that is to keep from paying late. Far better to pay the minimum amount on time than to go late just to pay an extra few dollars on your balance.
Also keep an eye on the additional fees your credit card company or companies are charging you. If they are adding fees for credit protection or membership fees, its time to call them and either have those fees dropped or terminates the credit card. Don’t worry because you can terminate a credit card even if you still are carrying a debt balance on that card. They will hold the account open until you pay it back but close it to any further charges.
Taking your creditors by the scruff of the neck and making them play ball is the way you become the boss of your credit rather than it being the boss of you. Next to additional fees and charges, getting control over your interest rate is the next area of focus so you can be paying more on your debt level and less in interest. You can also call the credit card company and negotiate a better interest rate. Don’t let them push you around. The credit card business is tough and competitive and they do not want to lose you as a customer. So don’t be afraid to let them know you will close that account if you cannot get a rate you can live with.
By being the boss of your credit, you not only can make a plan to get out of debt, you will get the good feeling that you are handling a tough situation rather than being handled by it. And that sense of control is worth a lot, especially when you are starting to put some controls on something as easy to lose control of like your credit card debt levels.
Remember it is not your money you are spending.
As we journey,
Larry
http://debtfreelivingme.com/
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
STOP!
Inside Out Credit Card Management
When the economy or personal issues and problems result in a high credit card debt, we often find our debt spread over three or four or more cards. So you may have a Visa, several MasterCards, a Discover card and a Capital One card and maybe many more each carrying several thousands of dollars of debt. The result is an ugly parade of bills from each company each needing a minimum payment that pays the interest and takes just a small amount off of your debt.
If it seems that the debt mountain never seems to go down, that’s not an illusion. The situation is not designed to help you get that debt down. It’s a cruel mixed message the credit industry sends us because if you have high credit card debt, your credit rating goes down. But even if you have too much debt, the credit card companies just keep raising your credit ceiling and sending more and more credit card offers to lure you into more debt.
The instinct is to keep taking out more accounts and transferring money to those deceptive zero percent offers that expire in a matter of months and leave you with yet another bill to pay that only makes managing that debt even more impossible. If you do get a little money ahead, the instinct is also to pay more down on the debts that have the highest interest rates to try to slow the erosion of your finances due to high rates.
But there is another approach to handling this debt that goes completely opposite your instincts and gives more control to you to begin seeing headway against those debts. But to use this approach, you will have to think with your head, not your emotions and not panic but think about how to get as much principle paid down as possible. This inside out approach to paying down your credit cards is simple and gives you a roadmap to freedom from debt.
First of all, stop taking out more accounts. That only gives another credit card company access to your money. They can charge you membership fees and try to lure you with credit insurance. If you have three or more credit resources already, that’s plenty.
Second, use short term offers wisely. If one of your existing accounts offers you a zero percent deal for a few months, take it but transfer a small amount to that account. Then you can focus on paying off that transferred amount and see 100% of your payment go against principle which is the fastest way out of debt.
Third, pick a card and pay it off. It might be the card with the lowest balance which is one you might give the least to so you can respond to the higher level debts. But if you pay that card off, that is one less bill coming in each month and it gives you a great feeling to know you are slowly killing off the monster of credit card debt one card at time.
That brings us to the cornerstone of the inside out method. Instead of paying on the card with the highest interest rate, pay them the minimum payment and put your excess funds against the cards with the lowest rate. In this way you are getting the most bang for your buck with the small amount of extra funds you may have to pay on the debt. That debt will go down more quickly and then you can attack the bigger accounts and begin to whittle away at them too. And by using a smart approach to the credit card debt you have, you take control of the problem and put it on a program to go away. And that will be the greatest feeling of them all. Develop a budget is the easiest way of finding out where the money is going...Click Here!
Getting rid of The Credit Card is one of the most satifsying feelings there is. The financial freedom from abusive tactics to interest rates that approach stealing. Take the time, make the plan get rid of the cards, TODAY !. One of the best books I have found for help is.....Click Here!
You can do it!
Larry,
http://www.squidoo.com/creditcardmanagement.
.
When the economy or personal issues and problems result in a high credit card debt, we often find our debt spread over three or four or more cards. So you may have a Visa, several MasterCards, a Discover card and a Capital One card and maybe many more each carrying several thousands of dollars of debt. The result is an ugly parade of bills from each company each needing a minimum payment that pays the interest and takes just a small amount off of your debt.
If it seems that the debt mountain never seems to go down, that’s not an illusion. The situation is not designed to help you get that debt down. It’s a cruel mixed message the credit industry sends us because if you have high credit card debt, your credit rating goes down. But even if you have too much debt, the credit card companies just keep raising your credit ceiling and sending more and more credit card offers to lure you into more debt.
The instinct is to keep taking out more accounts and transferring money to those deceptive zero percent offers that expire in a matter of months and leave you with yet another bill to pay that only makes managing that debt even more impossible. If you do get a little money ahead, the instinct is also to pay more down on the debts that have the highest interest rates to try to slow the erosion of your finances due to high rates.
But there is another approach to handling this debt that goes completely opposite your instincts and gives more control to you to begin seeing headway against those debts. But to use this approach, you will have to think with your head, not your emotions and not panic but think about how to get as much principle paid down as possible. This inside out approach to paying down your credit cards is simple and gives you a roadmap to freedom from debt.
First of all, stop taking out more accounts. That only gives another credit card company access to your money. They can charge you membership fees and try to lure you with credit insurance. If you have three or more credit resources already, that’s plenty.
Second, use short term offers wisely. If one of your existing accounts offers you a zero percent deal for a few months, take it but transfer a small amount to that account. Then you can focus on paying off that transferred amount and see 100% of your payment go against principle which is the fastest way out of debt.
Third, pick a card and pay it off. It might be the card with the lowest balance which is one you might give the least to so you can respond to the higher level debts. But if you pay that card off, that is one less bill coming in each month and it gives you a great feeling to know you are slowly killing off the monster of credit card debt one card at time.
That brings us to the cornerstone of the inside out method. Instead of paying on the card with the highest interest rate, pay them the minimum payment and put your excess funds against the cards with the lowest rate. In this way you are getting the most bang for your buck with the small amount of extra funds you may have to pay on the debt. That debt will go down more quickly and then you can attack the bigger accounts and begin to whittle away at them too. And by using a smart approach to the credit card debt you have, you take control of the problem and put it on a program to go away. And that will be the greatest feeling of them all. Develop a budget is the easiest way of finding out where the money is going...Click Here!
Getting rid of The Credit Card is one of the most satifsying feelings there is. The financial freedom from abusive tactics to interest rates that approach stealing. Take the time, make the plan get rid of the cards, TODAY !. One of the best books I have found for help is.....Click Here!
You can do it!
Larry,
http://www.squidoo.com/creditcardmanagement.
.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Credit Card Transfers
Handing the Debt Off
The credit card business is one of the most competitive industries there is. You can tell that because you no doubt get dozens of invitations for new credit cards every week. That is because the only way a credit card company can continue to grow new business is to steal the business away from another credit card company. It isn’t really a business where there are a lot of new customers coming into the market. The types of accounts the credit card companies want are people who are carrying a lot of debt, who continue to pay on the debt but never pay it off and who have no history of defaulting on their loans. If that describes you, then you are on the A list for a potential customer for a credit card company.
If you have a lot of credit card debt, it really isn’t that flattering that other credit card companies want your business. Even more infuriating is when a credit card company who already has you in debt sends you offers for still more credit cards. But there may be a glimmer of light in this tough situation. You might be able to leverage you’re “A list” position with the credit world to find a way to manage your credit card debt more successfully.
Typically if you have three or four or more credit accounts, the credit ceiling on those accounts probably have gotten pretty high. That is because, as we just reviewed, if you carry debt but pay on it, that sets a cycle in motion for the credit card companies to offer you as much debt as they think you might use so you can owe them even more money. Again, while this seems cruel and heartless, that is how these folks make their living so they have to find some way of attracting the debt of the A list customers.
But another method they also use is to offer you an attractive rate of interest to either start a new account or transfer debt from an account you have to your existing account. A common “come on” is to offer you zero percent financing which seems wonderful because in theory you could transfer all of most of your debt to the generous company and not pay any interest which would greatly speed your pay off.
Transferring balances has its good side and its negative side and you need to be smart about both. Read every word of the offer, even the small print on the back of the page because you must understand any hidden fees you might face if you accept their generosity. Almost always the zero percent or low percentage rate is for a very limited time of perhaps three or four months. In credit card land, this is a heartbeat. Then once they have your account balance of your debt built up, they can jack your rates up and you are right back where you started.
So be smart about using these kinds of offers. A great tactics is simply to transfer a fairly small amount of your debt to the zero percent offer. Transfer $1000 and then pay it off over the three to four mouth period. You win because you paid no interest and they lose because they can’t sting you with a high interest rate at the end. Also be aware of any transfer fees or membership fees if you are taking out a new card. These fees can amount to additional interest and negate much of the benefit. But if you are smart and use these offers shrewdly, they can be terrific ways for you to drive down your credit card debt surfing “come ons” from the credit cards companies in a clever fashion.
For more tips on how to manage your credit.....Click Here!
Larry,
You Need To Take Charge Of Your Credit
The credit card business is one of the most competitive industries there is. You can tell that because you no doubt get dozens of invitations for new credit cards every week. That is because the only way a credit card company can continue to grow new business is to steal the business away from another credit card company. It isn’t really a business where there are a lot of new customers coming into the market. The types of accounts the credit card companies want are people who are carrying a lot of debt, who continue to pay on the debt but never pay it off and who have no history of defaulting on their loans. If that describes you, then you are on the A list for a potential customer for a credit card company.
If you have a lot of credit card debt, it really isn’t that flattering that other credit card companies want your business. Even more infuriating is when a credit card company who already has you in debt sends you offers for still more credit cards. But there may be a glimmer of light in this tough situation. You might be able to leverage you’re “A list” position with the credit world to find a way to manage your credit card debt more successfully.
Typically if you have three or four or more credit accounts, the credit ceiling on those accounts probably have gotten pretty high. That is because, as we just reviewed, if you carry debt but pay on it, that sets a cycle in motion for the credit card companies to offer you as much debt as they think you might use so you can owe them even more money. Again, while this seems cruel and heartless, that is how these folks make their living so they have to find some way of attracting the debt of the A list customers.
But another method they also use is to offer you an attractive rate of interest to either start a new account or transfer debt from an account you have to your existing account. A common “come on” is to offer you zero percent financing which seems wonderful because in theory you could transfer all of most of your debt to the generous company and not pay any interest which would greatly speed your pay off.
Transferring balances has its good side and its negative side and you need to be smart about both. Read every word of the offer, even the small print on the back of the page because you must understand any hidden fees you might face if you accept their generosity. Almost always the zero percent or low percentage rate is for a very limited time of perhaps three or four months. In credit card land, this is a heartbeat. Then once they have your account balance of your debt built up, they can jack your rates up and you are right back where you started.
So be smart about using these kinds of offers. A great tactics is simply to transfer a fairly small amount of your debt to the zero percent offer. Transfer $1000 and then pay it off over the three to four mouth period. You win because you paid no interest and they lose because they can’t sting you with a high interest rate at the end. Also be aware of any transfer fees or membership fees if you are taking out a new card. These fees can amount to additional interest and negate much of the benefit. But if you are smart and use these offers shrewdly, they can be terrific ways for you to drive down your credit card debt surfing “come ons” from the credit cards companies in a clever fashion.
For more tips on how to manage your credit.....Click Here!
Larry,
You Need To Take Charge Of Your Credit
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Identify-Isolate
It Takes Planning To Get Out From Under Card Debt
Yes, you can because I did! Or I should say we did it. It takes coperation and teamwork in a family to reduce spending money we don't have for things we don't need. Determine needs versus wants and use that as a rule for spending. We are now credit card debt free. And, it's nice to end up the month with a significant balance in the checking account as opposed to a zero balance. Try it, you'll love it!
Yes, you can get out of credit card debt. If you are determined to get out of credit card debt you surely can get out of credit card debt. Though it’s a bit difficult to get out of credit card debt, it isn’t impossible.
All you need to get out of credit card debt is determination and planning. Both are equally important (or maybe determination is even more important). Determination doesn’t come without proper reason. So, you need to first ask this question to yourself – “What will I get if I am able to get out of credit card debt?”, “What difference will it make”, “What’s in it for me” or “Is it really beneficial to get out of credit card debt”.
Use the answers to build your determination. The fact that all the nagging via mails/phone (by the credit card supplier and/or their collection agent), will be gone, should do good to strengthening your determination and should provide you with a reason on why you should endeavour to get out of credit card debt.
Think about the stress-free life after you get out of credit card debt. Try to link various reasons together and try to see the benefits through them. All these collectively will help in bolstering your determination and prevent it from getting weak at any point in time.
The second thing that you need to get out of credit card debt is planning. The planning to get out of credit card debt will start with making a list of the credit cards that you currently posses and noting the debt and the APR for each of them. The sum total of all these various credit card debts, will give you the total credit card debt.
You also need to check if you have been defaulting on payments on some of these credit cards (and hence incurring a late fee). You will need to avoid that and put it on the plan you have prepared to get out of credit card debt.
The next step in getting out of credit card debt is to check your current financial position and make an assessment of what you expect your future financial position to be. Next comes the research to check the various balance transfer offers available in the market; to see if one of these can prove beneficial to you.
Use all this information to calculate how much time you will require to get out of credit card debt and how you will distribute the debt payment across your various credit cards (ensuring that you payoff the debt that is hitting you the most and also ensuring that you don’t incur late fee on any credit card payments).
This is a personal matter to us, since we have done it. And, without shortcuts. We paid every single one of those "things" off. If you want some further information and help....Click Here!
I'm rootin for you!
Larry,
http://www.squidoo.com/creditcardmanagement.
.
Yes, you can because I did! Or I should say we did it. It takes coperation and teamwork in a family to reduce spending money we don't have for things we don't need. Determine needs versus wants and use that as a rule for spending. We are now credit card debt free. And, it's nice to end up the month with a significant balance in the checking account as opposed to a zero balance. Try it, you'll love it!
Yes, you can get out of credit card debt. If you are determined to get out of credit card debt you surely can get out of credit card debt. Though it’s a bit difficult to get out of credit card debt, it isn’t impossible.
All you need to get out of credit card debt is determination and planning. Both are equally important (or maybe determination is even more important). Determination doesn’t come without proper reason. So, you need to first ask this question to yourself – “What will I get if I am able to get out of credit card debt?”, “What difference will it make”, “What’s in it for me” or “Is it really beneficial to get out of credit card debt”.
Use the answers to build your determination. The fact that all the nagging via mails/phone (by the credit card supplier and/or their collection agent), will be gone, should do good to strengthening your determination and should provide you with a reason on why you should endeavour to get out of credit card debt.
Think about the stress-free life after you get out of credit card debt. Try to link various reasons together and try to see the benefits through them. All these collectively will help in bolstering your determination and prevent it from getting weak at any point in time.
The second thing that you need to get out of credit card debt is planning. The planning to get out of credit card debt will start with making a list of the credit cards that you currently posses and noting the debt and the APR for each of them. The sum total of all these various credit card debts, will give you the total credit card debt.
You also need to check if you have been defaulting on payments on some of these credit cards (and hence incurring a late fee). You will need to avoid that and put it on the plan you have prepared to get out of credit card debt.
The next step in getting out of credit card debt is to check your current financial position and make an assessment of what you expect your future financial position to be. Next comes the research to check the various balance transfer offers available in the market; to see if one of these can prove beneficial to you.
Use all this information to calculate how much time you will require to get out of credit card debt and how you will distribute the debt payment across your various credit cards (ensuring that you payoff the debt that is hitting you the most and also ensuring that you don’t incur late fee on any credit card payments).
This is a personal matter to us, since we have done it. And, without shortcuts. We paid every single one of those "things" off. If you want some further information and help....Click Here!
I'm rootin for you!
Larry,
http://www.squidoo.com/creditcardmanagement.
.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Credit Card Management
Stop Spending It Like It's Your Money.
“Reduce credit card debt and eliminate it before it assumes a horrifying shape” – This is really the gist of the story. So, how do you reduce credit card debt? Well, you reduce credit card debt by preventing it from increasing and by paying off what it is currently. Simple, isn’t it?
Not really. If it was that simple to reduce credit card debt, then we wouldn’t have had so many people with credit card debt related problems. We would have been able to reduce credit card debt problems and finally eliminate them (or reduce them significantly). There are all kinds of advice available on how to reduce credit card debt, but still nothing much seems to change. The problem still seems to persist and in fact, worsen.
However, it’s not that difficult to reduce credit card debt. As we just said, there is a lot of advice available on how to reduce credit card debt and the only thing you need to do is put that advice, on how to reduce credit card debt, to practice in real life. Well, no one but you will benefit if you reduce credit card debt.
So the first step to reduce credit card debt is to prevent it from taking dangerous proportions. The 2 most important ways of implementing this step are – balance transfers and use of cash.
Balance transfer is often treated as the number one measure to reduce credit card debt. This is really something that can help reduce credit card debt by slowing down the pace at which your credit card debt is getting built. It also provides you relief in terms of the APR being 0% for initial 6-9 months (and hence helps reduce credit card debt faster). To reduce credit card debt using this mechanism, you need to transfer your balance from your current credit card(s) onto another credit card that has a lower APR than your current card. Thus you reduce credit card debt by preventing it from increasing so rapidly.
The other preventive measure to reduce credit card debt is to use cash instead of card (as such, hard earned cash is difficult to get out of pocket as compared to just a credit card). So you reduce credit card debt by not adding more to it. That is the simplest way to reduce credit card debt.
However, you can reduce credit card debt only if you stick to your resolution to reduce credit card debt; otherwise it will fail miserably.
Check this out!Click Here!
Good Luck, it's worth it!
Larry
Tips On Managing Your Credit Card
“Reduce credit card debt and eliminate it before it assumes a horrifying shape” – This is really the gist of the story. So, how do you reduce credit card debt? Well, you reduce credit card debt by preventing it from increasing and by paying off what it is currently. Simple, isn’t it?
Not really. If it was that simple to reduce credit card debt, then we wouldn’t have had so many people with credit card debt related problems. We would have been able to reduce credit card debt problems and finally eliminate them (or reduce them significantly). There are all kinds of advice available on how to reduce credit card debt, but still nothing much seems to change. The problem still seems to persist and in fact, worsen.
However, it’s not that difficult to reduce credit card debt. As we just said, there is a lot of advice available on how to reduce credit card debt and the only thing you need to do is put that advice, on how to reduce credit card debt, to practice in real life. Well, no one but you will benefit if you reduce credit card debt.
So the first step to reduce credit card debt is to prevent it from taking dangerous proportions. The 2 most important ways of implementing this step are – balance transfers and use of cash.
Balance transfer is often treated as the number one measure to reduce credit card debt. This is really something that can help reduce credit card debt by slowing down the pace at which your credit card debt is getting built. It also provides you relief in terms of the APR being 0% for initial 6-9 months (and hence helps reduce credit card debt faster). To reduce credit card debt using this mechanism, you need to transfer your balance from your current credit card(s) onto another credit card that has a lower APR than your current card. Thus you reduce credit card debt by preventing it from increasing so rapidly.
The other preventive measure to reduce credit card debt is to use cash instead of card (as such, hard earned cash is difficult to get out of pocket as compared to just a credit card). So you reduce credit card debt by not adding more to it. That is the simplest way to reduce credit card debt.
However, you can reduce credit card debt only if you stick to your resolution to reduce credit card debt; otherwise it will fail miserably.
Check this out!Click Here!
Good Luck, it's worth it!
Larry
Tips On Managing Your Credit Card
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