Whether you used your credit cards to buy gas, food, clothes, car repairs, or luxury items, you need to pay off your account balances as soon as possible to avoid paying a lot of interest.
Even though the average American owes $9,000 in credit card debt, there are a lot of people who owe a lot more. If your credit card debt is "through the roof" and your interest rates are above 20%, it's unlikely that you'll be able to pay it off in less than 40 years if you only make the minimum monthly payments.
For example, if the average interest rate on your credit card debt is 24.99 percent and you owe $50,000, it will take you exactly 41 years and two months to pay off all of your credit card debt. And it gets worse. At the end of 41 years, you will have paid a whopping $102,129, with more than half of that going to interest.
Even putting yourself on a plan for five years will cost you in the end. You see, if you can pay $1,437.34 every month, you'll pay a total of $86,240, of which $36,240 will be interest.
To avoid this trap, you should look into other ways to get rid of your debt. If you have enough equity in your home, you may be able to get a home equity loan with low interest. If you can't pay your bills every month, you might want to think about consumer credit counselling, settling your debts, or even filing for bankruptcy.
No matter what your current situation is, if you owe a lot of money on high-interest credit cards, you should find a way to avoid just making the minimum payments every month. This will only lead to more years of high debt and payments if you keep doing this.
