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Credit card debt can be expensive. Unfortunately, many people owe money on their credit cards. The Federal Reserve reported the mean balance for families with credit card debt was $6,100.
If you make only minimum payments on a balance that big, it would take you more than three decades to repay your balance if your card charged the average interest rate of 21.29% — and you’d end up paying over $32,000 in total costs.
Obviously, that’s completely unreasonable. You don’t want to come anywhere close to paying that much — and you don’t have to if you get your debt paid down more quickly. It can be daunting to try to find the extra money in your checking account, but these tips could help you to become debt free much faster and for a much smaller price.
Set a specific repayment goal
Setting a specific goal is important if you want to become debt free before a few decades pass and you’ve sent the card company thousands of dollars. For example, you might decide you want to repay the card by the end of one year or the end of two, depending on just how badly you want to be debt free and how much spare cash you have to throw at the problem.
Say, for example, you’re really hoping to be rid of your $6,100 credit card balance in 24 months. If your card charges an APR of 21.19%, you’d need to make a payment of $314.00 per month. You can use a credit card payoff calculator online to figure out your goal based on either your desired payoff timeline or the extra money available to send to your creditors.
Pay extra toward the debt
Once you have set your payoff goal, you’re most likely going to need to start making extra payments to achieve it. Credit card companies set minimum payments really low, so most of your payment just goes to covering interest and not making real progress in debt paydown. Extra payments, on the other hand, go right toward reducing your balance.
If you’ve followed step one above and set a repayment goal, you should know exactly how much extra to pay on your debt based on the plan you made. So, you’ll be ready to move on to step three — automating those extra payments.
Automate the process
The next step in your payoff efforts should be to set automatic payments for the amount needed to accomplish your card payoff goal. So, if you decided you need — and can afford — to make $314 monthly payments, you’d want to set up an automatic payment of that amount on payday.
Your card will usually let you set a scheduled payment for whatever amount you want, and it doesn’t have to be when your statement due date is, as long as it’s before it. If you make an automated payment to your card issuer as soon as you get paid, you won’t have a chance to spend the money on something else when you’re working to become free of your credit card debt.
Consider trying to reduce your interest rate
Finally, you could refinance the debt. This option is worth exploring if you think it might take you a while to repay your balance, as refinancing the debt could potentially reduce your rate and make payoff easier. There are a couple ways to do this.
You could take out a personal loan that has a lower rate than your credit card debt and that comes with a fixed interest rate and payoff period. You’d use the proceeds from the loan to repay the debt, then just pay back the personal loan. With your lower rate, this could be a more affordable approach, and it comes with the benefit of a definite debt-free date, since your loan has a set payoff time.
You could also use a balance transfer credit card that offers a 0% promotional rate for a period of time. Consider the best balance transfer cards, many of which give you between 15 and 18 months interest free (although you’ll usually pay an upfront fee of 3% to 5% to transfer your balance). If you transfer your card balance to your new balance transfer credit card, you can work on paying down what you owe with all of your payment going toward principal rather than interest. Ideally, you’d want to do the math and ensure you could pay enough each month to repay the balance in full before the 0% rate ends.
By taking these steps, ideally you can wipe away your card debt. They’ll work whether you owe the average balance, or a smaller or lower amount, as long as you set a realistic payoff goal and automate your extra payments so the money will get where it needs to go.
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