$25,000 in credit card debt....... OMG!!!!!!!!!?

I have $25k in cc debt.... paying $300 in finance charges alone a month..... how can I pay it off??????

First of all, STOP using your credit card. STOP applying for credit cards and put yourself on a budget. Cut down to the bare minimum until you can get yourself back on track.

A lot of banks will help you budget yourself if you need the help. Or you can consult with a debt reconsolidator.

Check out Dave Ramsey. His web site is Daveramsey.com. I used his method which is very easy and it worked wonders for me. Most of the problems with credit card debt is not the cards themselves, it IS the spending habits you have. I know I had them too. You can listen to online archives of his radio broadcasts or if you are luck enough, you can listen to his daily radio broadcast. Check it out you will like it.

Most people who are in over their head find the debt snowball to be an effective tool.

First, you've got to find a way to make more money available to debt relief. It doesn't have to be A LOT, but you've got to find more. Some people sell a bunch of things. Other people cut expenses...like going from expanded digital cable down to basic broadcast cable. Still others decide to go out and get another part time job. You've got to find something that will make some additional money available to debt payoff.

I presume you're paying the minimum payment on everything. Keep doing that, except for the SMALLEST debt you have. Take all your additional money and fork it over to the smallest debt, so that you pay more than the minimum. Keep doing that until your smallest debt is completely paid off (it may take months or years!).

Once you've paid it off, roll EVERYTHING you paid towards that smallest debt into the next smallest debt. So if you were paying $125 per month on the small debt, and your minimum payment is $25 per month on the next smallest debt, you should now be paying $150 per month towards that next smallest debt. You'll find it won't take quite as much time to pay off the second smallest debt. Then, roll that over into the third one, etc.

Thats the debt snowball. Then there's the most important thing: Don't accrue any more debt. Put $25 a week in a savings account as your "just in case / emergency" fund. Use THAT when things happen like "the car breaks down". DON'T use your emergency fund for non-emergencies, like "I really need a new couch and they're on sale this month."

See those finance charges you have? You have to pay more than that a month to cut out the finance charges to get your payment to go into the principal balance. Don't charge anything else to the card. If you can, pay $500 a month on the card or $125 per week. This will cut down on the finance charges if you pay weekly because most of the balance will not be reflected in the interest cycle. If it is all on one card, there isn't much you can do but pay it. If it is on several cards, pay extra a month on one card at a time.

Hard work & discipline! Many tips on saving money and reducing debt canbe found at:

www.cheapsk8.com

You should have thought about that BEFORE YOU CHARGED IT ALL!!! Work two or three jobs if you have to. Turn off your cell phone, cable and internet service. Quit eating out. Time for you to learn to live within your means!!! Just because you see something you want does not mean you just buy it!!! You made the mess, YOU CLEAN IT UP!!! DON'T BE A DEADBEAT THAT WON'T PAY THEIR BILLS!!!

That would depends on the income level. If you are making more than $10K monthly, you should be able to settle your debt very soon.

My suggestion, stop charging to your credit card from now. Interest charges will kill you.

First, get $1000 in the bank so you don't have to use the credit cards again. You need that $1000 for the emergencies that come up.
Second, cut up the cards and decide not to use them again!
Third, get on a budget (www.daveramsey.com) and STICK to it
Forth, get another job and all that money goes on the debt.
Fifth, how much is your car payment? You may want to sell your car, get a cheap car until you are out of this mess. If you didn't have a car payment you could use that money to pay down the credit cards. (If your car balance can't be paid off in 18 months or less, sell the car, get a cheap car until you are out of debt.)

Work hard and you can get out. We have been using Ramsey's plan for 1 1/2 years and have already paid off $15k in debt.

You better find a way to pay more than just minimum payments. You will be in debt for the next 30 years, if you do this. You might want to restructure your debt. Talk to a financial counselor about this.

First of all, make yourself a list (or a spreadsheet, if you're technically inclined) of all the cards, how much you owes on them, what the typical minimum payment is, and what the interest rate is.

Add up all the minimum payments. This is the minimum monthly credit card expense.

Check to see if any of the cards have a pretty low percentage usage. For example, if you had a $3k limit on average, are any of the cards under $1,500? If so, pay every last penny he toward the card that has the lowest balance until it's paid off, while you continue to pay the minimum on the other cards.

If there isn't a card close to pay off, he can choose to focus on either the card that has the lowest balance or the one that has the highest interest rate.

If there's some "room" on cards with lower interest rates, it's also not a bad idea to transfer some of the balance from the highest interest card to lower ones, then focus on paying off the now-reduced amount on the high-interest card.

Once one card is paid off, leave it open as an emergency buffer (also known as the broken fridge fund). Later, this will be replaced by a bank account buffer, but if you can get a credit buffer going, it's more important to pay off your debt than to have a lot of money in the bank.

Then choose another card to focus on. (The next low balance or high interest card.) Take the minimum amount that you used to pay on the first card and snowball it into the payment of the second. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Example:
Card 1 - 1,200 (minimum payment: 50)
Card 2 - 1,000 (minimum payment: 40)
Card 3 - 800 (minimum payment: 25)

Once you pay off Card 3, you can then pay 65 per month to card 2.

Don't cancel the cards once you pay them off.

If you owe $30,000/$32,000 that's a 93.75% usage.
If you pay off a $2,000 card it's then $28k/$32k which is 87.5% usage.
However, if you close the paid off card it's now $28k/$30k, which is 93.33% usage.

Keeping the card open but not used makes you look better, because you're not as close to being totally maxed out. (Plus, that's your emergency fund until you get you credit card payments low enough to make a savings account emergency fund.)

In all but the most dire situations, it is possible to pay off debt. This process will take a while, but it'll be worth it!

Take a deep breath...Relax.. You didn't get in this mess overnight, you won't get out of it overnight.

First.. Cut up those credit cards.. Do not use them anymore. Second... Contact one of those "non-profit" debt programs. They can help lower interest rates, and consolidate the cards into one payment.
Third. Avoid getting into this mess again by limiting yourself to 1 card and only charge what you can pay off each month.

"A debt consolidation program helps to get out of all high interest debts. There are various types of debt consolidation loans.

Home equity loan is one such debt consolidation program where a person can use home to get a loan.

This is a secured loan and the interest rates are low compered to unsecured loans.

Selecting a online debt consolidation is very easy as it allows you to total all your debts into one small payment.

Going for online debt consolidation is a good option, you need to take into account the fee charged by the debt consolidation companies."

Hi,
I used "Credit Solution" to settle my debt and improve my credit score.They managed to reduce my debt up to 58%.It's legitimate.I came accross this company on NBC News Special Edition.Check it out here:
http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-1813149-10467845

It absolutely CAN be paid off, I'm not sure why these other "experts" are saying it can't. I worked as a senior retention rep for Bank of America in the credit card division, so just do yourself a favor and take what I am about to say as gospel truth. I know that sounds arrogant, but this is the way it is.

Right now, calling up your banks to get your interest rates down is going to be relatively pointless. One or two of them may come down by 1 or 2 percentage points, but that really isn't going to help you. From your description, it sounds like your average % rate is about 14.5. The fact that you have this much used credit with that kind of percentage rate leads me to believe that you are at or near your overall max.

Here is what you need to do. Add up all of your credit card balances, and add up all of your total credit limits. Look at the difference between those numbers and figure out exactly how much you have left. Once you get that number, look at your individual balances and see if you can find one UNDER that number. If you can't, which is totally possible, look for the closest one you can find.

THEN what you want to do, is transfer that balance out to the other cards as much as possible. You want to get that balance as close to $0 as you can but you do NOT want to close the account. Make sure you call the companies you're transferring the balance to and see if they have any balance transfer offers. If you can get something that is at 0% for any amount of time and then goes to a fixed rate, transfer as much onto that account as possible.

AVOID BALANCE TRANSFER FEES. If an offer is 0% for 6 months, then 9.9% fixed, but it's got a balance transfer fee, avoid it completely as the fee will completely offset any savings and will go through as cash which will accrue 20%+ interest until you pay it off.

Once you get the credit consolidated and you get a balance or two down to zero, let your billings cycles go by on those balances, then call up those banks and ask about balance transfers. Do NOT call up these banks about balance transfers BEFORE you transfer their balances away. Doing so will result in you getting time-sensitive offers that will go away once you've transferred the balance away.

Here's where it gets a little subjective. You will most likely get a couple different offers from the banks that you've transferred the balances away from. You will need to sit down with a calculator and figure out which offer saves you the most money over the long-haul. Do yourself a favor and don't think short-term savings, banks make their bread and butter on the long-term.

Once you've transferred your balances back to the previously emptied cards (just max them out, you're not going to use them anymore, anyway), NOW call up the banks who now have depleted balances and ask about lowered rates as well as rewards programs. You want to go with a reward program that offers strictly money-back rewards. Preferably one that offers money back on the finance charges you pay. When the time rolls around for these rewards, have them applied directly to your balance.

I've helped countless people go through this procedure and it absolutely works. Also keep in mind that you can use a balance transfer to pay ANYTHING. ANY BILL can be paid with a balance transfer. So, if you get a bank offering you a 0% BT which then goes to 7.9% fixed, transfer as much as you can onto that card. If you've got a car note at a high percentage rate, this can be a great way to save money.

Finally... while you're doing all of this your minimum payments are going to go way down. I'm guessing right now your minimum payments are around $550-$600 per month. Keep making the same payments. The great thing about that is, your balances will go down exponentially faster than they are now.

You can do it. It will take some time, but it can definitely be done. Don't be too shy to email me. If you let me know some of the banks you've got balances with I may be able to give you specific tactics to use.

STOP CHARGING!!!!!! and pay a little more than the monthly payment every month.

Also, call your creditors and see if you can't get them to lower your interest rates.

1) You really first need to figure out why you have 25K in debt. No debt elimination plan will work without some serious, serious personal reflection.
2) Start reading www.simpledollar.com. (Not mine, I just love it and has changed my life.)
3) Pick any of the forementioned plans, smallest card first, lowest interest what works for you and stick to it.

My 2 cents is that you don't need a debt consolidation place, you can do those things on your own. I also am in support of getting interest rates lowered. It will make a huge difference, even if it 1 or 2%.

My husband and I will have paid off 20K in 18 months with vigilance and so will you.

I have found on the net that there are a lot of things about fixing your credit you can buy some good some not. I started to use one of those companies that help with consolidation but, I bought these programs that have worked wonderfully. If you follow their easy instructions you will improve you credit and credit score. They even have the forms or letters you should use to send to the credit bureaus. I even bought the programs for my daughter who filed bankruptcy and she has improved her credit also. They teach you everything, how to increase your fico to reading your report and how to go about cleaning your report. I try to tell everyone about these programs because they are so good. These people know what they are talking about and have done the research and they are patterned after someone who filed bankruptcy and how he fixed his credit and now has even better than he had. I feel I have gotten my moneys worth buying them. The address is www.comingbackstrongfinancially dot com.

It really depends on your income, but there is certainly hope! Try going to www.prosper.com. There are investors and lenders who are willing to lend people in this situation. Good Luck!

Unless you have a very healthy income, you will never pay it off. The best you could hope for is bankruptcy.

You will never pay it off without robbing a bank. It sounds like you are maxed out and can't get a loan either so I would suggest changing your name or suicide. Our President has ruined the bankrupt option program for idiots like you.

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