Looking at the man on the Bankrate.com Infographic you can tell right away that digging yourself out of debt takes hard work. There are days when it feels like getting out of debt is like cutting through concrete with a jackhammer. The debt seems tougher than steel and you wonder if you have the power to get through it. You will also need to sacrifice to stick to a disciplined plan. The following are a pretty good guidelines for how to blast away your debt.
- Pay off?the credit card with the highest interest rate first.?The largest payment should go to the card with the highest interest rate.
- Make minimum payments on the remaining credit cards.?Do this until the most expensive card is paid off.
- Two credit cards with the same interest rate:?If you have two cards with the same interest rate make a larger payment on the card with the higher balance.
- Maximize your interest savings.?You can maximize your interest savings by asking creditors for a lower interest rate. Even a small reduction is money saved.
- Automating your payments.?You might want to consider automating your payments so that you never miss a due date.
All of these are very good ideas and will work well. The one thing that this infograph did not specify is to make all of those payments on time. It serves no purpose to pay all those payments and get charged more fees for late payments. It also did not tell you to stop using the cards all together. It is going to be hard to stop the habit of whipping out the card to pay for things, but it is going to save a lot in the long run. Still, these are good guidelines to follow. Read more about credit and reviews on credit repair companies on our main site.
