Most people celebrating the commercial traditions associated with the Christmas holiday find themselves facing credit card bills in January. The brutal truth is that the longer you let these bills sit without payment, the harder they will to pay off in the near future.
Don’t Be Overwhelmed By Debt
When individuals find themselves burdened by overwhelming debt, their initial reaction may be to ignore the issue. However, it’s essential to understand that this type of debt only vanishes if proactive steps are taken to repay it or if you seek assistance from a reputable debt aid consulting company.
Being in debt can affect your mental health according to an International Psychology Clinic article. Anxiety, shame and stress from chronic worry can be the result. Some people even hide their debt from others, borrowing even more money so that it looks like everything is under control.
Thankfully there are several things that you can do to feel like you have control over your financial future once more. Seeking credit card help can help avert the worst case scenario of having your credit is completely withdrawn.
Freedom Debt Relief
Seeking out a plan such as offered by Freedom Debt Relief can help you to reduce seemingly insurmountable credit card debt to a manageable size. A consumer proposal made now can save you thousands of dollars in accrued monthly interest over the coming months.
A professional consumer debt consolidation expert can also access credit card help from your creditors. These experts will help you identify which accounts are owing, and then negotiate with your creditors to settle on an owed sum that waives some or even all the interest.
Why would creditors allow you to lower your payments? The credit card companies need consumers to exist. It is not their goal to destroy the shopper with debt, but rather to see that shopper still out there using a high-interest credit card the following Christmas.
Start With A Strategy
Not all holiday debts requires the services of a credit card help expert. Sometimes the debt is manageable enough that you can devise your own plan to scale back and pay it off. It also helps to stay in communication with your creditors, so that they know you are addressing the matter.
Assessing Your Debt
Start by gathering together all of your holiday debt and assessing it. It may no be as overwhelming as you thought. Simply sitting down with all of your bills, a calculator and a spreadsheet, such as the free budgeting templates available from Microsoft can help you “crunch the numbers” and make a plan.
The three types of debt that people tend to garner over the holiday season are –
- Credit card debt where a set APR is paid on a monthly owed balance
- Retail credit cards that allow a 0% interest rate as long as you pay the balance off in 30 days (however if you don’t the interest rate rockets to 20% or more per month.)
- Buy-now pay-later financing that has become due now that the grace period is up.
A review of your income and expenses versus debt amount should reveal how much you may have to cut back to pay this debt off and whether you have to get a second job to help pay it off, Often a second income in combination with credit card debt help can help address the amount owed.
The Pay Off Strategy
There are several ways to pay off your debt, but in general, you should pay off the balances that have the highest APR first, even the amount of the purchase was quite small. Store cards and any purchases with buy-now pay later option should also be paid off as fast as possible, as retail card APRs are often quite high.
Once you develop a pay off strategy it is important to stick with it, and if the situation is still overwhelming, do not hesitate to get credit card help.
