Many people pay just the minimum on their credit cards month after month because they either dont want to pay more, or they dont think they can afford it. There are ways to pay off credit card debt fast without breaking the bank.

Minimum Payments dont work!

A creditors favorite customer is one who just pays the minimum due on their balance every month. Why do they love people like this so much? Well there are two reasons; first they will never be able to pay off this debt anytime soon if they only pay the minimum, and secondly they will pay a lot more interest this way. This could potentially take you years to pay off! If you just paid an extra 5 or 10 dollars every month, you could significantly shorten your payment time.

How much extra?

Most minimum payments are about 2% of the total balance. So if you owe 2000 and you just pay the minimum balance it would take you roughly 32 years to pay off that credit card! However if you just paid any extra 10 dollars a month you would shorten your pay off time to around 8 years! You would also save yourself a lot of money in interest payments.

How can you afford it?

Ten extra dollars per credit card may seem like a lot, but it really isnt that bad. If you need to, you can make adjustments in your budget to make these extra payments. If you get a coffee every morning during the week you can save at least three dollars a day, which is $15 a week. If you smoke, you can save even more. If you smoke a pack a day, thats about another $3 that you could save. If you quit smoking and brought your own coffee to work you would save $144 a month that you could be putting towards your credit cards.