Managing Your Credit Card Debt - Part 2

Cancel your credit card and replace with debit card if possible. Seek some professional help if you can't manage it on your own.

Step 4: Perform plastic surgery on all but one of your cards. This may be painful, but look at what having these card has done to you. Get the scissors out and cut them up. Next, cancel those cards. Cutting them up is not enough because it is too easy to backslide, call the card company, and order a replacement.

Before canceling, check the fine print in your contract because some card companies actually raise your interest rate if you cancel a card while carrying a balance. In this case, pay off that debt and then cancel the card.

Now, what do you do with that last card? Your wallet will not be naked without it, I promise. Leave it at home in a safer place. You choose where. Maybe you should put it someplace where it will take an effort to retrieve it. Carrying it in your wallet makes it too easy to use if temptation rears its ugly head and starts to whisper " Buy me, buy me!" Saying that the devil made you do it is not a viable excuse here.

Consider getting a debit card because, with a debit card, you can't spend what you don't have. A debit card is connected to your checking account or money market account, and the amount of the transaction is debited directly from your account.

Step 5: Seek some professional help if you just can't manage it on your own. Contact the National Foundation for Consumer Credit (NFCC). This is a national network of nonprofit organizations that provide consumer credit education, debt counseling, and debt repayment programs. Many of its members are locally managed nonprofit agencies operating under the name Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS). The CCCSs deal with credit card companies every day, so they may be able to negotiate a lower interest rate or even stop the interest on your debt. Their counselors can help you set up a budget and re-establish credit. These are nonprofit organizations that provide services on a sliding scale. So if you spent your last dollar on this book, you won't be turned away.