What are the best ways to cut down credit card debt?

Best ways? Plural? Is there some suggestion that there’s more than one way?

Because there isn’t. There is only one way to cut your nasty, insidious, credit card debt. Sorry guys, but it’s called “willpower”.

You just need some to draw on.

Credit cards, used incorrectly, are cancers on your finances. They predominantly come with exhorbitant interest rates that will eat up your bank balance, literally, from the inside. Evil.

Unless you’re paying them off in full every single month, and therefore not incurring any interest, you have a habit you need to break.

Johnny Farnham (daggy, I know) sang “Just give me a reason”. For Xers, the reason will give you the willpower. Is it because you want to buy a home? An investment property? Want to start an investment program, upgrade the family car, start putting away for the kids’ education?

Find it and you’ll have your motivation to stop paying, for example, $3000-$3600 a year on credit card debt of $20,000.

Willpower is what you draw on to NOT spend. And not purchasing stuff that you clearly can’t afford, so you can achieve other financial dreams, is the ONLY way.

And don’t hold on to savings when you’ve got credit card debt. Holding on to $10,000 earning 2.5 per cent in a savings account, where you pay tax on the interest, never makes sense if you’ve got $10,000 of credit card debt, paying interest at 18 per cent.

Just find that reason that will give you the willpower. And, as you reduce your debt, call the bank and have your card limits reduced.

Bruce Brammall is the principal adviser with Bruce Brammall Financial (www.brucebrammall.com.au) and author of Mortgages Made Easy.