Christmas and Hanukah are now over.  Your guests have gone home.  Many people experience the post holiday blues.  One reason you might be feeling a bit down is knowing that those credit card bills will be rolling in soon.

A small amount credit card debt can be good to have.  It helps to keep your FICO credit score in a positive place.  Unfortunately many American’s carry too much credit card debt.  The average American has $9205 on their credit cards.  This is triple what the amount was in 1990.  The holiday season does not help, as shoppers will be driving those totals up even higher.

Nationwide, foreclosures and bankruptcy are up.  It is important that consumers pay more than the minimum payment on their credit cards to get out of debt.  Take into consideration, that if you pay the minimum payment on $1000, it will take you almost 22 years to pay it off.
 
Here are some steps you can take to become debt free.

Firstly, don’t ignore the bills as they come in.  It might seem easy to pretend that they do not exist, but ignoring them will only make matters worse.  Once creditors add late fees, plus interest, plus potentially raise your current interest rate, you will find that it will be more difficult to get out of this financial suicide.  Don’t forget that creditors will report all late payments to Credit Reporting Agencies once they are 30 days late.

Check back on Monday for the continuation of this post.