What do you do if you are behind on credit card and min. payment is too high?

Answer 1

If you can't afford the minimum payment, you are in deep trouble. The minimum payment barely covers the interest that is getting added on every month. If you are paying less than the minimum, then your balance is going up rather than down. You will be paying on that for years and will still owe them money.

Call the credit card company and make some sort of arrangement with them. Maybe you can get them to lower the interest rate so you can work on getting it paid off. You need to stop charging things on your credit card though. At the rate you're going, you will be in debt for years as it is without ever charging another thing on the card.

If you have a balance of $5,000 and you are only making the minimum payment, depending on what interest rate you are being charged, it will take you 18 years to pay it off. You'll also be paying over $7,000 in interest charges. By not making the minimum, you are getting additional charges added on.

You need to call the credit card company now before you get yourself deeper in a hole with no way out.

Answer 2

Here's what I did and it worked for me. I found a 0% balance transfer offer and transferred my balance to that new credit card. You can find a 0% offer by searching for it online (0% balance transfer credit card offer) or by going to your public library and asking the information desk to help you look at consumer report copies that have this infomation in it. It will work in your favor if you have good credit ratings as I did, but it MAY still work for you even if you don't.

Now that you don't have that interest accumulating you can begin to pay off the principal of the balance on your new credit card. Introductory 0% balance transers usually expire in 3 to 6 months, 9 months if you're very lucky. Then they switch over to extremely high interest rates. So what you want to do is about a month before the end of your introductory period you start shopping around 0% balance transfer credit card and do it all over again. I did this for years and eliminated ANY interest and eventually got ALL my credit cards paid off. The key to this working is establishing and keeping good credit by paying the full amount on time every time. Oh, also, with those introductory 0% balance transfer offers, they will alos revert to the high interest rate if you are late for a payment. So, you can work the system, just pay attention to those things to avoid high interest rates. Good luck!

I went to the bank to see if they could get me a really low interest loan to pay off the debt and at that time I had a 2.9% balance transfer interest rate and they said if I could really remember to transfer my balances as I was doing they had nothing that would be that good, but that most people who do that forget to transfer when the introductory period is over.

Also, I forgot to tell you there will be a charge to do this every time, but it is much less than the interest you are being charged. It is usually a certain percentage of your balance or a minimum $50 charge, whichever is less. So you see you still save tons of money. GOOD LUCK! I have shared this with so many people who have appreciated the advice.

Another tip: mark on your calendar when you need to switch over to the next 0% offer. That way you won't forget!

Answer 3

You may want to seek a personal loan. I was consumed in credit card debt not long ago and had to see help. If you would like I can reccommend them.

Answer 4

You need to call them up and talk to them (creditors) and tell them exactly what the problems is - they should work with you, because they do want their money. Don't get sucked into debt consolidations and all that stuff if you don't have to.