How I Was Able to Get Rid of Credit Card Debt Quickly

About three years ago, my wife and I were drowning in debt, and our biggest problem was with credit card debt. I decided that we were going to get all of our credit cards paid off and then cut them in half so that we were never able to use them again. We tried a couple of different tactics, but in the end, we found a way to get rid of credit card debt quickly that did not put a tremendous strain on our budget.

I guess you could say that we are the typical American family in the sense that we got into a lot of credit card debt very early on. We had seven cards and more than $10,000 of credit card debt. My wife and I used to see these commercials that advertised for companies who claimed to get rid of credit card debt quickly. Invariably, however, one had to pay a portion of their monthly payment to the company itself, and the monthly payment you had to make in order to get it paid down was typically quite substantial.

What we decided to do to get rid of credit card debt was to focus on one card at a time. By that, I mean that we paid the minimum monthly payments for all except one, and then paid a substantial amount on that one until it was paid off. Interest rates are so high that paying an equitable amount on each one every month was really getting us nowhere, and it began to feel like we were being crushed by credit card debt.

We started to knock out one card at a time, and before long, our credit card debt was manageable. Also, I don't know if it is purely psychological, but watching your credit card bills drop from seven, to six, to five and so on is quite satisfying, and you really feel like you are making progress. There is less to pay and less to remember each month. One of the things that I found amazing was the number of offers we got from other credit card companies once we started to get rid of credit card debt, and hence get rid of our credit cards.

It is not difficult to get rid of credit card debt if one is committed to doing so. We have now gotten rid of all of our credit cards and it feels great to have done so. We are tempted from time to time to apply for another one, swearing that we will only get one, but then we remind ourselves of what we went through and how it started.