How To Get Out Of Debt

Thousands of people search online each month for strategies on How To Get Out Of Debt. If there is anything the latest financial crisis has taught us it's that there is a generalized debt crisis in almost every corner of the world except Asia. The primary culprit is the consumerism attitude that has become so pervasive in our society.

In 2009 when consumers stopped spending and started saving some money everyone panicked!  Everyone from the government to the local car dealer began to strategize how to get consumers to spend now! After all, consumer spending including health care makes up about 70% of the U.S. economy.  NO ONE wants you to be debt free!

In A World Of Spending, How Do You Get Out Of Debt?

First and foremost you have to take a make the decision that you want to be debt free. One day I made the decision that there was really nothing more that I needed to be happy. The things I was purchasing were making me miserable instead of happy because they were adding to my debt load. I was spending more and more of my income just to pay for interest costs. In fact, it was in June 2000 that I hit the low point of my business life. After struggling for nearly 4 years to get my Online Marketing business off the ground I had reached the end of my credit rope. In addition to a $40,000 business loan I had raked up 3 credit cards to total $32,000. Additionally, out of desperation I had borrowed even more from former clients and family members. It always seemed that I was just on the verge of success, so I hadn't curbed my spending habits to keep them in line with my income.

It was then that the interest rates on 2 of my credit cards suddenly went through the roof. One of them shot up to 24.99% and another card went to 21.99%, this was despite the fact that I hadn't missed any payments. I then assumed it was because my cards were nearly maxed out, but years later when I pulled my credit report I found an error on my credit report that had caused this issue. I researched how to resolve the error but by that time it had cost me hundreds of dollars worth of interest per year. If you think your interest rates are too high make sure you pull a Free Credit Report to see if there are any issues.

Start Paying Off The Highest Interest Rate Debt That
Has The Lowest Outstanding Balance

For me the top priority was to pay off those two high interest credit cards that were basically 21.9 & 24.99% as they were killing me financially.  For several years I had been receiving 0% offers in the mail to open new credit card accounts, so I grabbed a Capital One offer and applied over the phone. Even though I had received a prequalified offer she said they couldn't make an immediate decision and I would receive confirmation in the mail within a few days. Obviously, that was a bad sign and remember this was before I knew there was an error on my credit report.  When I received the confirmation letter  a week later it said I had been denied for the card. Not only had I been declined for the low interest card, but I couldn't get any account with them that was lower than 20%!  This was truly shocking and it was apparent that creditors felt I was a sinking ship and wasn't in need of another credit card.   With no easy solutions available, I had to make some hard decisions and start paying things off the hard way! 

Fortunately, it wasn't as hard as I anticipated!  You can follow what I did to get out of credit card debt fast!