My debt is my spending problem.

My high debt happen because of unnecessary and non essential spending.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Vicious Circle of My Debt.
The main virtue of credit cards is also the main problem when it comes to uncontrolled debt. Credit cards let me purchase goods even when I don’t have the cash to do so, even is well known the credit card interest rates are higher than any morgage rates of any loan morgage any other. If you have discipline you can use this feature on your advantage by enjoying something you buy today and save to pay for it in a longer period of time. However, lack of discipline led me to be tempted to purchase goods without consideration and exceeding my repayment capacity.
Thus, debt accumulates in the balance. If, when payment is due, you can’t cancel the balance in full, you’ll probably pay a smaller amount and finance the rest. This will imply interests that will add up to your balance. If I don’t stop buying goods, I won’t be able to pay the credit cards balance in full, my low mortage rates home loan, and debt will keep accumulating. Time will come when I won’t be able to pay the minimum amount on the credit card and I’ll incur in penalty fees and higher interest rates will be charged on the unpaid balance.
Though exaggerated as it may seem, this scenario is very common and it often leads to default or even bankruptcy. The consequences of such events are devastating to the credit score.
There are however many things to avoid these situations and start reducing the debt till I become debt free. With commitment to discipline I follow the advice:
To avoid Minimum Payments
Most of a minimum payment is interests, thus if you pay only the minimum payments you won’t be reducing your debt significantly. The key to success in reducing credit card debt is to pay as much as possible but always over the minimum. By doing so, though it may not show right away, you’ll end up saving thousands of dollars in interests on the long run.
If you have multiple credit cards, check which of them has the highest interest rate and if you can’t transfer the balance, pay as much money as possible in that card and only the minimum on the others. Once the balance is fully paid, return the credit card and continue with the next higher interest credit card. This way, you’ll be saving a lot of money on interests too.
To cut on Non-Essential Expenses
At least till you reduce your debt substantially, you need to lower the amount of money you spend on non-essential expenses. You need to thing twise when walking in a store, use a calculator just like use a morgage calculator, when buying a house. Buy only what you specifically need. It’s important that you make some sacrifices, in the future you’ll be able to retake those expenses and you will have avoided worse problems than pilling up bills and debt like default or bankruptcy.
If all this doesn’t work, you can request a consolidation loan to pay off al your debt and cancel your credit cards or contact a debt consolidation agency to negotiate with your creditors new repayment plans after mortgage calculator estimations with lower and affordable installments. However, this should only be done as a last resort since it may affect your credit score negatively.

Tip: One day you can find out you are in a deep dept. You and your wife analize what day by day week by week it adds to the debt. You make a commitment not to borrow any more, not to buy things what are not really needed.