Find Your Target Before You Shoot
While it’s possible to run out onto a shooting range blindfolded, swing your fully-automatic firearm across the line of targets, and expend the entire clip into the bullseye of every one, that’s very unlikely. You’re more likely to hit the target if first you aim; but how do you aim when you don’t know where to look?
This is the essential problem of credit card debt. Oftentimes we spend so much through so many different kinds of credicredit cards, it becomes difficult—if not impossible—to get a handle on the problem. You’ll have a half a dozen or more credit card companies to which you owe money, but where do you start?
You want to consolidate everything into one place, and design a payment which sees to the needs of all cards simultaneously, if such a thing can be done. But again, this is something easier to say than to do.
When looking for the best way to consolidate credit card debt, Consolidated.Credit has some pointers: “If there are certain financial terms that you do not understand, then you can rest assured that you are not alone. Many people do not know the difference between a credit card balance and credit card consolidation.”
The truth is, this can be complicated, but if terms are simplified, it becomes easier. Consolidation refers to “putting it all together”. If you’ve got ten credit cards, what you owe on each one is combined into a single bill. You may have five cards with $700 in debt, and three with $200, and two with $1,000. Combined, that’s $6,100.
Several Other Considerations
But there are additional things to take into account; interest rates, for example. The higher the interest, the greater your payment will have to be. Ideally, you want a credit card payment which has been consolidated to base its minimum payment on overcoming the maximum interest. Interest is the price you pay for borrowing.
If the highest card has a 15% interest rate that is compounded every month, you want to ensure that your regular payment overcomes the additional costs which result from this interest rate. Naturally, the more you pay against a credit card debt, the faster it will diminish.
Once you get everything consolidated and start a regular payment schedule, you’re well on your way to getting out from under the thumb of crushing debt. Additionally, as you go about paying this debt, it will eventually become something like a rent payment, or a payment on your car, or smartphone. It will become common.
At this point, you can work on increasing your regular income. While you’re paying off the consolidated credit card debt, it’s rather like jogging while wearing weights. You build financial muscle, and by the time the payment is all done, suddenly you’ll realize you have an additional discretionary sum at the end of every month.
Chasing Down Your Dreams
You can now devote this sum to the accomplishment of your dreams, whatever they may be. Travel, starting a business, financing an art project, or purchasing some luxury item you’ve always been dreaming of—these are just a few examples of what you can do. If you paid in $500 a month, imagine having that much freed up.
It’s almost like the sky is the limit. But if you want to get to this point, you’ve got to make that first step. So get out from under the debt thumb by realizing where it is constraining you, and finding a place to push back against it.