Join me in paying off our credit cards!

[Shell]

I confess I have spent way too much money lately on my credit cards. I hate this! I have three credit cards that I owe money on and I just have to pay them off. I know in Jan. I am getting a year end bonus and I am going to put that money on my credit cards. Who will join me in this credit card challenge?

[bamamomto4]

Count me in!!! I have set myself a goal...to pay at least 2 credit cards and Ashley's Clarinet(already 4 months ahead on the clarinet)!!

Dh bought a Nissan truck last year to put a transmission in and resell.I am really hoping he can sell this truck SOON!! With the new baby,we NEED the money to pay off some bills and decorate the nursery!

Good Luck!!

[justjenn]

Definitely count me in! We have 4 ccs, and 3 dept store cards. I have no clue how we ended up with that many. It is our goal to pay off at least 3 of them. We will be paying our truck off in a month, so that will give us $422 extra a month to put towards cc debt. Yay!

Should we check in with each other ever so often? Maybe it will keep us accountable.

[Mom23boys]

Good luck to you all! I have no credit card debt to pay off...thank goodness! If I charge on them, I pay the entire balance off when the bill comes, so that I am not paying interest. I only charge what I know I can afford to pay.

I have other bills I would love to pay off though.

[cody15650]

I have 2 c.c I want to get payed off this year. Then I am canceling them.Then I'm going to do like mon23boys is doing. I have learn not to do it any other way. I will get lower interest on them.

[halo475]

Good Luck!!! It is the greatest feeling in the world to NOT have cc debt.

I do like mom23boys and pay it off every month, but I used to run them up and NOT pay them off and my self esteem plummeted. So now I am very careful when I use them

[Shell]

I used to have more credit cards but cut them up as I paid them off. I think I will cut up one more after I pay it off!

[Shell]

OK, how should we start this? I think the challenge should begin Jan 1st. Should we confess to how many credit cards we have and then state HOW we are planning to pay them back? Shall we vow not to use them? How about we all state our individual goals and how we plan to achieve it? I read that when goal setting the more detail that you write in how you are going to do something the better chance of getting your goal.

OK here is my goal and how I plan to pay it off:

1. Effective Jan 1st I will not use my credit cards anymore.

2. I owe on three credit cards. When I get my year end bonus I am going to put them on my credit cards.

3. I will continue to pay min. $500 each month on my credit cards.

4. When I get my tax refund in a couple of months I will put it on my credit cards.

5. When my TD Visa is paid off I will cut it up and cancel it. Two credit cards are more then enough.

[2cutekids]

Good luck on the challenge! I am debt free How did I do it? For one I transferred all my cc debt to a cc that offered a very low interest on balance transfers. I then continued to pay the same amount that I had been paying before. Another thing that I did was to put all extra money toward my debt.

[Shell]

OK everyone what is your plan for the New Year to pay off your cc's? Is anyone brave enough to confess how much they owe?

[Phaedrae]

I will join this challenge.

I have 2 credit cards. Both are maxed and both have a 20% APR.

One card has a $4100 limit the other a $3500. Both are maxed.

I also have a Sam's Personal Credit card with a limit of $750. It is currently at $600.

I won't vow not to use them because cash flow is very tight and what usually happens is I pay too much on one of the above and then there is nothing left for groceries but the cards. I have started a budget however that I am currently using in trying to get organized when it comes to the bills.

With my tax return I have a plan. The first is to get my car completely diagnosed and fix on a as need basis. The second is to pay to each card a fixed amount from the return. The third is to put a small amount in savings for myself and my ds.

I hope this will work..

[MANDERS]

I don't have any credit cards anymore(never will hate em hate em hate em)But need to pay off some debts.I use the snowball challenge.So say for example you have 3 credit cards a,b,and c you pay 10% more a month on a(or what you could afford)and the minimum on b and c.Then say you get a tax return and pay off a,then you take your minimum payment from card a plus that 10% and add that to the minimum payment to b and then do the same with c.So you are still spending the same amount of money each month to pay off those debts.

Saw on the view today that if you have a credit card balance of $8000(which is the avg americans)with a percentage rate of 18% and you make only the minimum payment you will have it payed off in 54 years!!!!!!!!!!AND you will be paying almost $23,000 in intrest!!!!!

[Jenlee]

Phaedrae, this is something you and others may want to think about. We HAD a cc with a national bank and when things got tough and the interest rate got up to 19.9%, I called them and they put us on a program for one year that reduced our interest rate to 6%. They also waived any late fees and over the limit fees for that year period as well.

One other thing they did was lower our minimum payment by 60%. HOWEVER, I still made the same payment and more when I could and we made so much more headway during that one year.

When this one is paid off, we will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER have a cc again. We have found that a debit card works just as well.

[Phaedrae]

Jenlee.

Thanks for the advice.

I am currently trying to switch both over to the zero apr on balance transfers for a year..I just have to find the form again and get it filled out.

One thing I thought about doing was a debt consolidation loan but that just leads to more trouble.

[Shell]

Today I am writing out a cheque to my Royal Visa for $400.00. I am afraid this will only make a small dent but it is a start. I still have two more credit card bills to come in this month. I really have to smarten up.