Debt Settlement Blog

For many the issue of credit card debt can quickly overwhelm a household budget and create unwanted stress and anxiety. When you are at the store or the gas pump and you look in your wallet you make a decision at that point based upon your finances as to what piece of plastic will fund that transaction. If you have the money in your checking account most looking to keep balances on credit cards low will resort to a debit as opposed to using a credit card for that transaction.

If a credit card is used it is usually done with the intentions of paying off when the statements comes in the mail. When the bill is received a reconciliation is done against the checking to see if the funds needed to pay off the account are available. Hopefully they are if not the consumer can make a payment just to satisfy the monthly payment amount. This leads to the balance rolling over to the next month.

This roll over is when it all begins. If you used a $600/month roll over scenario at the end of a year you would accrue a $7,200 dollar balance on your credit card or cards. Making the minimum payment on that debt would take you 10 years to pay off with interest calculated into your payments.

Should you and your family choose a credit card over a debit card make sure that you can pay it off at the end of the month. After a few years of this behavior you could have 20-30k in credit card bills and no end in sight. If you have already reached this point you may wish to research debt management options for you and your family.