If you wish to truly rid yourself of any debts on your credit card then you need a proper strategy to do it. Many people today say that they would like to accomplish the goal of total debt elimination. However, only a few actually take the time to plan how they are going to do it. A debt elimination strategy can help you focus your efforts and allow you to accomplish your goal in the most effective way possible.
A debt elimination strategy will also help you cope with the sacrifices that you have to make in order to rid yourself of debts. People who try to eliminate their debts without a strategy often make sacrifices that have little or no impact at all on their goal. This discourages them and causes them to start incurring more debt.
Having a debt elimination strategy will help you make only the sacrifices that matter. A debt elimination strategy will help you make sure that no unnecessary effort is exerted. This means that a debt elimination strategy will make you more efficient.
A good debt elimination strategy should be suited to your needs. A good debt elimination strategy should always be based on your current situation. This means that you need to make your own debt elimination strategy. However, a good debt elimination strategy always begins with these three steps:
1) Stop borrowing – You need to put a limit on your debt if you ever want to eliminate it. People often think of using credit cards as “buying”. When you realize that credit cards aren’t used to buy but to borrow, then this step should be easier for you. You need to throw out your credit cards, ignore any credit offers from companies, and just quit adding to your debt.
Whatever you do, do not go for a last minute shopping spree just to say goodbye to your credit card. If you want a debt elimination strategy to work, you need to implement it now. You need to just put down those credit cards and walk away. Do not kid yourself by saying, “but I can do that anytime I want to”. The fact is, the attitude of “shop-now-worry-later” brought about by credit cards can be addicting. If you do not put those away now, you might never be able to.
2) Pay more than the minimum balance on your debt – Credit companies often require people to pay just a percentage of their debts monthly. If you are thinking that this was intended for your convenience, you would be very wrong. Credit companies get their income from interest. The longer you are indebted to a company, the bigger the interest is going to be. Companies that offer a low minimum balance are just making sure that you will be paying interest for a long time.
If you set aside some of your cash to pay more than the minimum balance on your debt, you will ensure that your debt does not increase anymore because of interest.
3) Save what you can – The third part of this debt elimination strategy involves trying to cut back on your expenses. Even if you stopped using credit cards, there are still certain expenses which waste your money. Cutting back on these expenses and adding them to your credit payments will speed up your journey to total debt elimination.
