If You Value Your Health, Get Out Of Credit Card Debt

There simply is no acceptable level of credit card debt. As long as you are running a debt balance on your credit cards, from one month to the next, the interest is accruing and you are paying far too much for your purchases. So, if you know what’s good for you, get out of credit card debt, while you still can.

Why do You Need to Get Out of Credit Card Debt?

There are four factors which make credit card debt a great danger to your long-term financial health, and they are the following:

• High interest rates
• Denial
• Low minimum monthly payments
• Societal pressures to go out and spend money

The problem with credit card debt, when taken from the perspective of debt, is that because of the low monthly minimum payments and the high interest rates, such debt increases very quickly. For many credit card debtors it eventually gets out of control and ends up having a negative influence upon their life.

Whichever way you look at it, credit card debt is not good. It’s a financial waste and it really is a good idea to get out of credit card debt if you know what’s good for you.

For example, if a credit card debtor owes $20,000 in credit card debt and their average annual interest rate across all their credit cards averages out to at18%. At this interest rate, on a monthly minimum payment of $420 per month, it will take just over 7 years to repay the debt; and this is no further debts add to the principal. So id a person stops using their credit cards and simply makes minimum monthly payments, this debt of $20,000 ends up working out at $35,700 by the end of that 7 year period. That is a lot of debt, don’t you think?

So at the very least, why would you want to pay out so much money? Effectively you are buying today and paying for it tomorrow, at very high rates of interest.

If this is not a good enough reason to want to get out of credit card debt, please do keep in mind that even if you think your credit card debt is under control the latter two dynamics, which are ‘denial’ and ‘societal pressures to go out and spend money.’, tend to have an adverse effect on most credit card debtors.

So even if your credit card debts are not out of control, and if you are retaining a debt balance month from month, the interest is accruing and will more than likely become a financial drag upon you over time.

Bad Influences on Your Credit Card Debt -
Denial and Societal Pressures

Looking first at denial, it is a dynamic which makes a credit card debtor shrug their shoulder and think “I’ll do it later”. However, later usually never comes and meanwhile that controllable debt is increasing at an exponential rate. The debtor keeps on wasting money on those low minimum monthly payments, which makes very little impact upon the credit card debt. Usually if the debtor maintains this attitude, the debt ends up getting out of control simply because the minimum payments start to become outlandishly expensive.

By the time the minimum monthly payments become expensive, the debt principle is well and truly out of control, which makes it even more difficult for the debtor to get out of credit card debt.

Regarding societal pressure, we have to accept the fact that we are surrounded by financial temptations and that it is so easy to fall into a debt. However, while becoming indebted is very easy, to get out of credit card debt is not so easy.

It is this combination of denial and societal pressures, low minimum monthly payments and high interest rates, which drive the credit card debtor into serious debt problems which are spiraling out of control. Consequently, if you do not get out of credit card debt sooner, then a serious credit card debt problem will soon be knocking at your door.

I Want to Get Out of Credit Card Debt
Should I Stop Using My Credit Card?

The only sane use for a credit card is to use it and then pay off the credit card debt within the specified time period, usually a 50 to 60 day grace period, whereby no interest is applied. By doing this you will not be running up a credit card debt.

Also, it may seem foreign to use a credit card in this way, however, when you think about it, living in debt is itself a bad idea. Just because credit card companies offer you easy payments, doesn’t obligate you to take up on their offer. By all means use credit cards, but use them in a sane manner, which helps rather than hindering you.

If your debt situation is not too bad, then do what you have to do to get out of it. And even if your credit card debt is serious, then do some research and workout a debt relief strategy which will help you to get out of credit card debt and then once out of the debt, make sure you keep out of it.