Take the First Step to Get Control of Your Credit Card Debt Today!
Want to learn how to get out of credit card debt, start saving money, and growing that money so that you’ll never have to live paycheck to paycheck again? In this week’s blog, I (@Michelethebargainqueen from www.savingmoneyandmakingmoney.com), will show you the first few steps that I did to successfully get my credit card debt under control.
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About two years after I graduated from college, I knew I was in trouble. I had a credit card to just about every store that I shopped. I’m talking about ten-twelve different credit cards. All with balances on them. Not huge balances, but a couple of hundred or less on each one. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I picked up my calculator to add everything up.
O.M.G.! I had over $2500 in credit card debt! But that’s not all! I also had my college tuition payments, my car (used) payment, rent, groceries, utilities…O.M.G.! What was I going to do?!
Believe it or not, I had taken the first step in my journey to eliminate credit card debt, by knowing how much debt I actually incurred! You cannot plan to eliminate your debt, until you know how much debt that you owe!
Once you know how much debt you owe you can make a plan to pay it off. The second thing that I did was to cut up all my credit cards. Yes, it was painful. I then looked around to find a credit card that would suit my needs. A credit card that did not have an annual fee. A credit card that I could transfer my balances from all my other credit cards and get 0% financing for at least one year.
This is where you need to do your homework. Research to see what credit card would be the most beneficial to you.
After I found out how much debt I was in, after I cut up my credit cards, and after I got one credit card to consolidate all my other credit cards, I felt better, but what else did I need to do? I was embarrassed to go to my parents so I thought I would turn to experts on finances.
Thomas Jefferson had said, “Knowledge is the key to success”. I decided to read whatever I could find on improving my finances and getting out of debt.
This led me to read “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. What they talked about made a lot of sense to me. I had also heard the names Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, and Suze Orman. I went to the library to get their books since I was broke. I started implementing just a few minor changes at first.
One change that was a no-brainer, was to put the same amount of money in my 401K that my employer matched. My employer at the time matched up to 4% of my earnings. That extra 4% that they match was FREE MONEY! Let me say that again, FREE MONEY! The money was taken directly from my paycheck, so I never missed that 4%!
Once I finally paid off my credit card bill in full, I went out and bought myself the four books that really inspired me to get my finances in order and under control.
I still have them and sometimes I will go back and skim through the parts that I had highlighted. I still go to the library to read books by the authors mentioned above. Once I read them, and if I feel it would be beneficial for me to have a copy at home, I will go and purchase them for my book collection.
“Knowledge is the key to success!” Thomas Jefferson was right on that one. I read every day. I have a decent sized book collection on finances, sales, and motivation.
Once you have that knowledge, you need to put that knowledge into action. Only you can put what you need to do into place.
So, what did we learn? The first step would be to know how much debt that you owe. The second step would be to find a no/low interest credit card to transfer your balances to have them all on one card. And knowledge is key. You want to make a change? Only you can take the action to make that change. What are you waiting for? Take that first step today!
As my husband always says, “Saving Money IS Making Money!”