Ten Smart Things You Can Do With Your Credit Today

Trying to get responsible about using your credit cards and managing your outstanding debt can sometimes seem like an impossibly overwhelming task. However it’s not as bad as you might imagine it to be.  Here are ten fairly easy and smart things that you can do to improve your credit situation today:

1. Order a free copy of your credit report. You can’t deal with your debt if you aren’t sure what the situation is with that debt. Order the report so that you can go through it and see what it is that you’re going to be dealing with.

2. Create a spreadsheet for your credit card information. This will include the name of the card, the credit limit, the amount outstanding, the interest rates and other detailed information. Being this organized will make it a lot easier to deal with all of your bills and debt

3.Set up automatic payments for the minimum amount due monthly on your credit cards. Late payments and missed payments are horrible for your credit. By telling your bank to automatically make the minimum payment, you avoid a whole lot of trouble.

4. Set aside the credit cards that don’t have any outstanding debt on them. You don’t want to get rid of them because they may be useful down the line but put them out of sight and out of mind while dealing with your debt.

5. Work on lowering your interest rates. You can do this through balance transfers or by negotiating with the credit card company.

6. Start paying down on just one card. The only way to deal with debt is to start chipping away at in manageable chunks. Choose a card that seems reasonable to pay off in the near future and start putting money towards paying it off.

7. Check out your credit card rewards. If you have credit cards that have rewards then you should check on the status of your rewards and see if there is anything you should be cashing in on.

8. Choose one credit card to be your primary credit card. Ideally this will be the credit card with the lowest interest rate and best rewards. Take all of the others out of your purse or wallet and commit to using this one – and only this one – in a responsible manner.

9. Start talking openly about credit card issues with the people in your life. Honesty about your credit card problems will make them seem like less of a big deal. Spouses or parents are good people to start being honest about credit card problems with.

10. Read up on credit cards and finance. The more information that you have, the better you are going to understand your credit cards. The better that you understand money, the easier it is going to be for you to be smart and responsible with your credit cards in the future.

Taking one step at a time with your credit card debt will make the entire process manageable and you’ll have it all taken care of before you know it!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.