Credit Card Debt – Stay Clear Of The Pain
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
How credit card debt creeps up around the unwary. How to watch for it and ways to avoid it.
Though difficult to believe now, at one time many years ago credit cards were a luxury, owned and flashed around only by the rich and famous or businessmen on the magnanimous expense account. (Years later exactly the same flaunting by the same beautiful people was being made with mobile phones – strapped conspicuously to the belt remember?).
Be that because it may, nowadays both these accoutrements are no longer luxuries; in reality they have become necessities of daily living. And together with them – or no less than with credit cards – has come a rather nasty little problem, to whit ‘credit card debt’. If we usually are not too careful it tends to steal up on us unawares, to produce itself painfully obvious over a regular monthly basis.
What is it and whence does it come? To answer this we have to know what happens behind the scenes, behind the counter with the bank or card provider. Your credit card merely represents the account you’ve with the bank or supplier. If you use it to buy that latest laptop or pay with an expensive dinner or whatever you are actually borrowing that money in the bank and the bank will remind you of the payments, or borrowings, at the end from the month. The hens – as hens are wont to complete – have come home to roost.
And these payments, aka borrowings, are what contributes for your credit card debt. Very easy isn’t it. Not exactly rocket science although in the event you let things slide it might need rocket science to get the situation back about the right track. But obviously you will not let that happen will you? You could not but thousands do though. And therein lies the scourge of the ubiquitous credit card.
So, you pay the amount on your own monthly statement through the due date and also you pay no interest. However, when you have been a little careless with your spending through the month, you may not have the ability to pay the amount which means you will incur a late fee and hefty interest charges. Or you could be able to pay slightly of this debt. That’s better than nothing – the bank won’t charge a late fee, just the interest on what has not been paid off.
So far so great. Some left still to pay, with interest accruing, at the end with the next month. When, oh dear, a bad month, somewhat short again so you can only pay a part of the debt again. And also the next month – only a part of it again…
So your credit card debit, like Topsy, grows. And grows .Should you continue making partial payments (or no payments whatsoever) the interest charges are calculated afresh about the new credit card debt. Which means you end up paying interest about the last month’s interest too.
Check out my other guide: household bank credit card, providian credit card and disney credit card