One day in the month of January several years ago I came to realize that I was in debt up to my eyeballs. I had spent the last three years charging my personal shopping sprees and holiday Christmas giving and who knows what else on plastic. I had charged over $20,000 split over five credit cards and had no idea how I was going to pay them off. I kept asking myself how could I have been so stupid to allow my bills to get so far out of control. I would stay up all night worrying about it, I worried about it so much that it began to make me sick. I decided right then and there that I would find a way to get out of debt once and for all. The plan that I came up with worked for me and if your in the same situation it can work for you to.

First thing I did was to make a pledge to myself that I would not charge any more no matter what. If I wanted something then I would have to pay cash for it and if I didn't have the cash then I would just have to do without. I then started calling my credit cards to see if I could get a lower interest rate. I told them that I had a better offer from another card and asked them if they would be willing to give me a lower interest rate in order to keep me with them. Most credit cards will lower your interest rate if they think there going to loose you to another company. This is especially true if they consider you a good customer. But if you can't get them to lower your rate then shop around for a better offer with another credit card. Find one with a lower rate with a no balance transfer, some offer no interest for the first six months to as much as a year and some even give a low interest rate that's guaranteed for the life of the loan. You may even be able to consolidate your cards with a balance transfer loan so you'll have less payments per month.

The second thing I did was to choose one card to pay off first, this should be the card with the highest interest rate. Every month I would pay on this card as much as I could afford and the other cards I would pay the minimum amount. I stuck with it, and was amazed at how fast the card I was paying the extra money on came down. I continued paying till it was completely paid off. Then I began paying off the next highest rate card the same way until it was paid and then the next and so on till I was debt free.

The third thing was to make sure I never got into this situation again. I decided to start paying with cash or use a debit card. People tend to spend less freely when there dealing with cash or a debit card because unlike a credit card they can see the money there spending. I still had a credit card for emergency's (I kept the one with the lowest rate) but I charge no more than I can pay off in a months time. Please understand that its not easy, you will have to over come the urge to charge and there will be things you will have to do without, the time it takes you to pay off all your cards depends on how much you owe and how much you can afford to pay each month. But this I can promise you, if you are willing to sacrifice a little and you stick with the program eventually you will be able to say that your debt free and that's a really great feeling.

About the author:

Article by AJL. AJL is the webmaster of http://www.ajlfreeweb.com His site offers webmasters and the general public free advertising with classified ads. You can place ads to buy and sell products online or place ads to promote your website. The site also offers free animated musical ecards and Internet chat rooms.