pay off my credit card bills

Put me WAY WAY behind in achieving this goal. After my temp assignment at the University of Washington ended it took me about 2.5 months to find another (lower paying) job. During that time I was denied unemployment and had to live on virtually nothing. Oh fun!

I couldn’t pay off my credit cards. Shit it was amazing I could even pay my rent. Even that was late.

I managed to talk the credit card companies down to lower minimums and lower APRs; however I am pissed because all of this just put me MORE BEHIND. I want to be free of this credit card bs once and for all.

I have a few credit cards with APRs that make my heart sink whenever I look at my statements. I look and think, “How the hell am I going to pay this off when the interest rate is 29%???”

There are a few strategies luckily. The first is the most obvious: paying your credit card bills on time. After a certain amount of on-time payments credit card companies will lower your APR.

The second is actually talking to the companies! I talked to one company and they brought my APR down from 12% to 6%. Not bad, eh?

I have been reading a book that gives a secret I didn’t think of—paying my bill twice a month! So far I have been paying my high interest credit card bills over the minimum payment due every month. To be honest I thought I was being slick.

Apparently it is possible to make two smaller payments each month and end up paying off your debts faster. With the two smaller payments less time occurs for compound interest to accrue.

Now that I have graduated from college and have a full-time job (a three month temp job) this goal will be a little easier to achieve.

With a full time job I can put a good dent in my credit card balances. I am thinking that in three months I can have four of the cards completely paid off and leave only one to deal with.

Looking forward to this! I want to be free of the credit card prison.