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If you can’t sleep at night because of credit card debt worries, you’re not alone. Many people get in over their heads charging things they think they can’t live without.

You don’t need to cut up all of your credit cards. Save your major bank cards, but stop charging needless temptations on them. You need a couple of major bank credit cards to maintain or build strong credit scores.

The credit cards you should cut up, department store credit cards, cost you too much in interest. Plus, these types of credit cards lower your credit scores. When mortgage lenders compute your credit worthiness for real estate financing, they deduct points for unfavorable department store credit lines.

Here are a few things you shouldn’t charge on your credit cards:

1. Gasoline. Why charge something that gets burned up before you pay for it? Think about how much per gallon you pay when you pay interest.

2. Food. Many people use their credit cards to purchase groceries that they pay for over the next year or longer. Also, because it’s so easy to pay with plastic, they buy extravagant and unneeded items. What’s more important–junk food or a good night’s sleep?

3. Clothes. Think before you buy clothes on credit. Don’t charge clothes on your credit cards unless you can pay them off right away. Children’s clothes wear out or they outgrow them before you’ve paid off the credit card debt.

4. Utilities. Because it’s so easy to pay utilities with an automatic credit card charge, many people end up paying for their air conditioning when they’re heating their homes. Put your automatic utility payments on your debit card instead.

5. Automatic services. Examine your next credit card statement. Total up items like cable or satellite TV, Internet services, an other automatic monthly charges. Can you pay these charges off each month or are you getting behind?

Make your life easier. Stop charging consumables and monitor your credit card debt. You’ll improve your credit scores and sleep well.

Copyright © Jeanette J. Fisher

Credit card debt is one of the leading cause for needing to file for bankruptcy or take out mortgage loans on your home or other drastic measures.  Studies indicate that credit card debt is slowly making a consumers financial situation bad or worse than ever before, and can also cause psychological depression and contribute to lower GPA’s and increased substance abuse among college students.  Credit card debt can build up quickly, especially if you have more than one card and a habit of charging everything.

Interest

The interest is the money paid on a balance to a lender by the borrower, which is to be paid every month, if you roll over your balance from month to month. Interest doesn’t usually go down on its own, and when only minimum payments are made your balance can grow to un-manageable amounts.  If you are late on a payment your interest rates can increase to 35 percent, making it very hard to pay off balances.  With interest rates still on the rise, there’s no better time to take a good close look at your finances.

Payment

Debt, especially credit card debt can accumulate very fast and many people soon find themselves barely able to even make the minimum payments.  Remember if you are late on only one payment, your rate could increase drastically.  If you are not good at remembering payments, it’s wise to set up direct debits to pay your credit card bills.  It’s always best to control your spending and try to pay more than the required minimum payment whenever possible.

The main problem with credit cards is that they make it very easy for you to spend money.  The most important step take to reduce credit card debt is to not use your credit card for every little thing, use cash whenever possible.  Studies show credit card debt is higher for males than female debtors, and even higher for joint accounts.  The problem with carrying credit card debt is that the interest on the card will typically accrue much quicker when you only make minimum payments.

Nowadays it’s easy to get a credit card with bad credit. Several credit card companies are marketing bad credit credit cards to meet the demands of persons who have somehow earned poor credit scores. Whether for reasons of unemployment or medical emergencies or for reckless spending, adverse credit rating is a common feature now. Getting a regular credit card with this sort of background may be difficult. Bad credit cards helps to overcome this difficulty and enjoy the freedom of having a credit card.

Before applying for such a card or getting one, you must make sure to quickly evaluate the reasons of your bad credit. If it has been for circumstances beyond your control like illness, loss of job etc, then there is nothing to do. But, if it has been for spending beyond your means, you must try to avoid repeating it in future. It’s always prudent to work on a budget drawn carefully balancing your likely inputs and outputs. This budget must contain provisions for timely payment on account of your credit card.  To get a credit card with bad credit and maintain it, you must always endeavor utmost financial propriety.

When you are thinking to get a credit card with bad credit, you need to do some market research to check out the best offers. Usually, Bad Credit credit cards charge higher interest than regular credit cards. Commonly known as APR or Annual Percentage Rate, this interest may often be around 10%.  You must go for a card with a low APR.

As you incur expenditure on your card and payback regularly, you continue to earn a good credit score. Then you can easily switch from a high-interest regime to a low-interest regime. Make sure your card does monthly credit bureau reporting. This helps in reflection of your improving credit rating across all credit monitoring systems and betters your credit worthiness.

Bad Credit credit cards generally come with relatively low credit limits. Often, this acts as an advantage for you. With an automatic restriction on spending, you can better manage your credit and repayment position.

Most Bad Credit credit cards come with annual fees and enrollment fees. You have to do some research to find out the card that has the lowest fees. If you are responsible about your credit and timely repayment management, Bad Credit credit cards can help you to come out of your difficult situation and rebuild your financial net worth.

We allow the credit card industry to make fools of us and we do nothing about it. If someone told you that you were being made a fool of, wouldn’t you address the issue? I know I would.

Credit card companies have revenue of $76.03 billion dollars and the majority of this revenue comes from late penalties and over limit and cash advance fees. $29.2 billion came from late penalties, $15.2 billion from over credit limit fees and $3.04 billion from cash advance fees. This amount is 62% of the credit card companies’ revenue and this does not include finance charges. Nice profit!

The above is the reason why credit card companies can afford to mail over 5 billion credit card offers per year. This equals to 6 offers per household per month. Maybe the $2 billion in postage alone is a reason why our government does not look into the credit card industry seriously.

Every bank and retailer wants you to have their credit card. Having their credit card enables them to make huge profits. In 2001 both Sears and Circuit City reported that over half of their corporate profits were from finance related revenue. Do you think this could be the reason why retailers always have an employee at the front door of their store offering you to sign up for their credit card and in return you receive a special gift or extra “so called” discount? Most special gifts and extra discounts end up costing you more than the original purchase due to finance charges.

I may not be able to confront these institutions that are trying to make a fool of me, but I can fight back by believing that “Cash is King” and using cash instead of credit will save me money in the end.

It’s a New Year and personal money management should be on the top of your list for 2006.