Tips for Eliminating your Credit Card Debt

Feb 20
08:25

2012

James Famuliner

James Famuliner

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

While outstanding credit card debt is not uncommon, it should never be considered acceptable. If you cannot reasonably pay off your credit balance in the foreseeable future, you should probably consider alternative loan sources, such as home equity loans, car title loans, or bank signature loans.

mediaimage

Even though a significant percentage of families today have outstanding credit card debt does not mean that it should be considered acceptable or a necessary evil.  From a financial standpoint,Tips for Eliminating your Credit Card Debt Articles when you pay your bill each month, the only acceptable credit card balance should be a zero balance.  Anything other than paying your credit card balance off in its entirety will result in accruing ridiculously high interest rates that dilutes the buying power of your next paycheck.

The reason that interest rates charged by the credit card companies is so high is because those companies are basically giving you an unsecured loan, meaning that you have not pledged any collateral and they have no guarantee whatsoever that you will pay them back.  In fact, they are already assuming that they won't get paid back for all of their customer's accounts and therefore they are charging a higher rate to offset those anticipated losses.  Therefore if your credit card balance has reached the point that you cannot foresee paying it off from your short term future paychecks, then it may be time to consider replacing your credit card debt with a collateralized loan, which should result in a much smaller interest rate.

The best way to do this by securing a home equity loan, provided that you own your home and you have some equity built up.  Banks will typically tend to estimate the value of your home on the low end of its market value when considering these types of loans, so you might need to try more than one bank, and generally your best chance is with a bank that is within the local vicinity of your residence.  If you are unable to get a home equity loan, then you can try to get a car title loan which allows you to use your vehicle as collateral, although be careful as sometimes the interest on  car title loans aren't as cheap as they probably should be.  Another possible option would be a personal or signature loan from a bank, which technically is still an unsecured loan, however you have at least signed a direct pledge to the bank that you will pay the loan back.

If all of these options fail, then you can always try to borrow money from friends or family members, however be aware of the possible detrimental effect that borrowing money can have on your relationship with the lender.  One last option that can help is to consider rolling the debt to another credit card with a lower rate, especially to a credit card that is offering a lower introductory rate.