Credit Card Debt: Pay Off The Most Expensive Debt
Confused.com are advising credit card holders to treat their credit card debt as a priority debt and ensure that it gets paid off as quickly as possible. This is because credit card debt is often the most expensive form of personal debt, meaning that it often incurs the highest rate of interest in comparison to other forms of debt.
The comparison website recommends that you switch to a cheaper credit card and ensure that you make more than the minimum payment each month so that your credit card debt shows signs of decreasing. Taking control of your debt management and making more than the minimum payment to your credit card debts are cited at top tips by the website.
It would take someone with a credit card balance of £5,000 at an interest rate of 14.9% 36 years to clear off their credit card debt if they only paid the minimum payment. During this time they will have racked up £7,000 worth of interest. By paying an extra £50 per month towards this credit card debt, the repayment time would be slashed to 6 years with less than £2,000 worth of interest debt being added.
Joanne Garcia, head of credit cards at the site, said: “If you can’t switch to a cheaper credit card, you can still make staggering overall savings by making more than the minimum repayment every month.” It is not possibly for everyone to switch credit cards in order to benefit from a lower interest rate; the main reason being that a low credit score combined with the credit crunch means that credit card lenders are a little more wary about new credit card debt applicants.
