Sick of Credit Card Debt? Pay it Off in 1/4th The Time. (No Crazy Schemes, Just Math.)

June 10, 2008 By Matthew Paulson

Credit card is amazingly easy to get into and almost seemingly impossible to get out of. When we’re young we naively get a credit card in hopes of building our credit, purchase a few things here and there with the best intentions of paying off our balance at the end of the month. We end up charging more and more because we like our new found purchasing power and really don’t consider the debt that we’re building up. Before we know it, we have thousands of dollars in credit card debt and it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel has been shut off. Fortunately, there’s hope to be had. You can pay off your credit card debt in a 4th the time you normally would.

The problem with credit card debt is compound interest. With many credit cards you will be paying anywhere from 19% to 29% in interest, this will take you to the cleaners financially if you let it. Most of your payment will be going toward the interest and very little of it will be going toward your principal balance making it take seemingly forever to pay off your debt. Since most people are paying minimum payments or close to it on their credit card debt, it will often take them decades to get out of their credit card debt. If you’re stuck in a 33% default rate, you might consider transferring the balance to another card. There are special credit cards for different types of people that might get you a better deal, such as credit cards for new business owners.

If you want to say goodbye to the balance on your Visa once and for all, the first thing you have to do is stop borrowing on it. You’ll never pay it off if you keep charging things up on it. Cut it up, or put it in water and freeze it so that you’ll not be tempted to use the card again. If you send in $100 a month on a credit card debt, change it so that you pay $50 every 14 days on your credit card. This is called the Eisenson method, essentially it will make it so that you’re paying extra payments without even realizing it. Over the course of the year, you’ll end up paying two extra payments which will go completely toward the principal balance of the credit card.

It’s shocking how fast you can get out of debt using this method to pay off your credit cards. Since the interest rates are so high on your debt, paying down extra on the principal will dramatically reduce the amount of interest you pay, in fact you’ll likely be able to get out of your credit card debt in 1/4th the time that it normally would.

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