Essential Must-Know Credit Card Debt Facts

09/27/2009 - Finance Love them or loathe them, the credit card is actually a good thing. We are all searching for a better credit score and a credit card is very often the best way to build good credit, but misuse it and they suddenly become your most hated financial outlay.

The credit card debt facts are these:

The pros are;

1# Emergency Financial Aid:

A credit card can be used, as is the case by many users, as an emergency source of funds.

2# Free Insurance:

When used to purchase items many cards offer the security of free purchase insurance.

3# Improved Credit Status:

As long as your use is controlled and you don't run into problems your improved credit status will make it easier to gain loans for cars etc.

The negatives are;

1# Card Misuse:

Using your credit card as an extension of your paycheck and maxing it out will get you way in over your head very quickly.

2# Missing payments:

Missing Payments will have an adverse affect on your credit for SEVEN years and becomes affective almost as soon as you miss your first payment.

When deciding to get a credit card the two important factors to give consideration to are the Interest charged by the card supplier and the balance payable at the end of each period.

Different Credit card companies offer different interest rates, but an acceptable Fixed interest rate is between 8 and 11 percent. You can then compare the various special offers that each supplier in that bracket is offering before making your final choice.

With regards to payable balance that comes down to you, how much you can comfortably afford to pay each month, remember this sum should include the added interest rate; for example: If you can only afford to pay $100 each month and your credit card has an interest rate of 10% APR you should only spend around $90 to $95 as there will be a minimum monthly interest charged.

However should these credit card debt facts go unheeded it is likely that you will end up looking to consolidate your credit card debt and quite often a debt consolidation loan is the best option to do this, but before looking into a credit card debt consolidation loan there are methods that many are now using to achieve financial freedom in remarkably short periods of time.

The methods mentioned are not widely known but are both ethical and legal and are not liked by the financial institutions who DO NOT want you or anyone else using them to reduce and eliminate debt as it would be very damaging to their interest related profits.