Do you want to clear off all your credit card debts? Maybe you are planning a vacation or want to buy a new set of furniture for your home. Because of the credit card debts, however, you need to put everything on hold.
As a salaried individual, such things often come in the way of happiness, and you may often be forced to withhold on your dreams.
It’s easy to accumulate debt on your credit card by making budgeting mistakes or overestimating their repaying cpacity, but what most people don’t realise is that they will take time to repay it. Moreover, if you are not aware of credit card debt, it may become even more difficult for you to pay it off in due time.
Additionally, as time increases, you will find yourself facing the task of clearing your debt; unless you have a good idea and plan to settle it.
If you abuse your credit card too much, you may end up in a vicious debt cycle, or end up paying a lot more than you had planned in the first place.
Moreover, as your debt increases, your credit score decreases, which can affect you for years together. If your credit score worsens, you may not even be able to borrow more money.
Hence, it is always better to know how and when you are accumulating credit card debts and get an approximation of how much debt is still left after repaying small chunks of money over time. This situation may look dire, but thankfully, most borrowers provide a credit card payoff calculator that can help you analyze and get rid of debt most effectively.
What is Credit Card Interest?
A credit card is a revolving credit account that allows consumers to make expenses now and pay for them later. The provider issues the credit card with a credit limit based on the consumer’s repayment capacity. Upon any purchase, the credit limit will decrease, which will again be available after the repayment of the balance.
The repayment can be made partially or even extended to the next billing cycle.
However, extending it to the next billing cycle isn’t free of cost. Not being able to pay the outstanding balance during the billing cycle will add interest to the unpaid balance. Many banks start calculating the interest charge from the very day of the purchase.
Activities That May Lead to a Vicious Credit Card Debt Cycle
The one thing that you need to avoid at all cost is recurring debt. If you spend your money paying just the interest, it will increase over time and go on forever.
As a salaried individual, it will mean sacrificing your future dreams. Hence, you must be aware of the problems that can lead to a debt trap, eventually losing financial freedom, and adding it to a permanent recurring cost.
If you focus only on paying off the interests of the debt, it may be bad news since the credit card company will keep charging you with extra debt, thus keeping you in debt for an extended period.
If you neglect paying this debt or do not pay the interest levied on it, you may even damage your credit score and the ability to borrow money. Increasing the number of cards that have debt will make it even harder to manage and repay them, and this obsession with debt can lead to unnecessary stress in the future.
How to Pay Off Your Debt Systematically
Even a little amount of money can accumulate to a huge debt. Hence, you need to pay special attention to your credit card debt and manage it properly to pay it off and become financially free, systematically. Implement the following steps to clear yourself of your credit card debt.
- Take note of all your credit cards with an obligation on them and arrange them according to debts in descending order.
- Reduce costs by transferring as many debts as possible to the card that has the least interest rate.
- Pay off debts of the high-interest rate credit cards and move towards the lowest by following the snowball method.
- Try paying something more than the minimum amount required to stay on the positive end.
- Do not add any more debt to your account and pay all your debts on time.
How to Steer Clear of the Vicious Debt Cycle
Once you have entered a debt cycle, it will get increasingly difficult to clear off your dues, while you continue to spend liberally. As average salaried individuals, you need to forego your present pleasures and look ahead on to the future.
The following steps can help you in getting out of this vicious cycle.
- Become committed to clearing your debts, set up a routine and payment, and track it.
- Ask your loved ones to help you and support you in accomplishing your goal.
- Praise yourself for going the extra mile in clearing the debt.
- Stop using your credit card for expenditure for some time.
However, you may find that calculating your debt and expenses and managing them can be very difficult. If you have several cards, the problem becomes significantly higher. You can use a credit card payoff calculator like CRED to help you out.
What is the Credit Card Payoff Calculator?
Credit Card Payoff Calculator is a financial planning tool which calculates the number of months and the total outstanding amount required to pay off the bill. The user needs to input the total outstanding loan amount, the annual interest rate, and the monthly EMI amount.
Based on the inputs, the calculator will estimate the total cost of interest, the total repayment amount and the number of months required to pay off the bill, as well as the minimum amount to repay, the rate of interest, and the standing principal and interest.
Thus, you can do complex calculations, and also manage the debt on the cards easily.
Credit card payoff calculators can help you with calculating interest rates, and how payment of a certain amount may increase or decrease the debt clearing time. However, some credit card providers start charging interest right from the date of the expense, while others do it from the date of billing, and you need to watch out for them and feed the details accordingly.
Many credit card providers also calculate interest based on average daily reducing balance. Any additional purchase during the billing is also a part of the average daily reducing balance. Thus, sometimes it becomes difficult to incorporate all of our purchases into the calculator.
An application like CRED that manages credit card payments can be helpful in this regard.
Conclusion
Credit cards are a boon in modern times since you can easily borrow money for your activities and it is also quite easy to pay credit card bill nowadays.
However, sometimes, when you do not pay off the debt, they can be a nuisance. When such a situation arises, as salaried individuals, you need to monitor the situation to pay off the debt.
A credit card calculator helps you with all the tools required for calculation so that you can formulate a plan, track it, and not have to worry about the details.
Krishna Murthy is the senior publisher at Trickyfinance. Krishna Murthy was one of the brilliant students during his college days. He completed his education in MBA (Master of Business Administration), and he is currently managing the all workload for sharing the best banking information over the internet. The main purpose of starting Tricky Finance is to provide all the precious information related to businesses and the banks to his readers.
