3 Steps To Reduce Credit Card Stress
If you are in any kind of debt, then you will know that sinking feeling when another letter lands in your mailbox or a demand for payment comes through. When you don’t stay on top of debt, it can eat away at you and cause you a lot of stress. But how can you eliminate credit card debt altogether? Regardless of the reason why you have the debt, you need to think about clearing it away, so that you can feel more free and not have to worry about where the money is going to come from. So if what has been described sounds familiar to you, then here are some strategies to help you to clear your credit card debt. Hopefully, this is useful to you. Good luck!
As For a Lower Rate
Half of the trouble of having debt is that it spirals out of control because of paying interest. If you are only able to pay a minimum amount off each week, then it really does add up. But have you ever talked to your creditor about it? Sometimes, just a quick phone call to your lender can get you a reduced credit card interest rate. Even a few percent less is going to be a help. So why not give that a go? If you’ve got a good credit rating (which is possible when you’re in debt), then they can be confident that you will still make the payments. We’re not saying that it will happen every time, but it has to be worth a try.
Consider Debt Consolidation
If you have a few credit cards, all in debt, then credit card consolidation can be a good idea. A site like consolidation.creditcard would explain more about it. But basically, consolidation is putting all of the debt in one place. Sometimes it means that you can be paying no interest for a small amount of time too, depending on the lender that you choose. But in general, it means that your interest will be less, as it is one set rate, rather than spread over a few different cards that all have different rates.
Use a Balance Transfer
Transferring the credit card balance from one card to another can be a good idea, as long as you’re getting a good deal with the new lender. If they can offer you six months interest-free, for example, then it can be a good deal to take. Then it means you have six months to clear your debt, with no additional fees. You need to be careful with this, though. If you haven’t cleared your debt in the interest-free period, then quite often it goes up to a high-interest rate once that period is over. So it is only going to work if you have it in your budget to be able to clear the debt in that amount of time. An article on thebalance.com shares about the pros and cons if you wanted to look into it further. But take your time to do the calculations to see if it is going to be worth it.
