Ireland Credit Card

Credit card debt in Ireland is a matter of worry for a lot of credit card holders today. These are generally those people who ignored the simple fact that any payments made using the credit card are actually a borrowing which needs to be paid-back to the credit card supplier within a stipulated time. These people (should we call them debt card holders) just went on spending on their credit card as if it were their own money. When they reach the credit limit on their first credit card, they switch to another/new credit card and continue spending in the same way. The story continues until they start receiving legal notices from credit card companies and calls from debt collection agents. They have now entered the stressful world of credit card debt.

Getting out of this difficult situation is not as easy as getting into it. You can’t turn the things around overnight to get rid of credit card debt (unless you win a lottery or something like that). What it needs is proper planning, perseverance and patience.

So first you need to analyze how bad your current debt situation is. Get the data together for all your credit card debts and figure out what your total debt amount is. You might like to maintain this information in a diary and track it on a monthly basis so that you are always up-to-date with your debt situation.

Next you will need to find out what debt is hurting you most e.g. which credit card has the highest APR. This is the one which you would like to clear off on priority basis. Also, check if you have been defaulting on the payments for any of your credit cards and as a result of that incurring a late fee. Late fee is something which you surely want to avoid. So make sure that in the process of paying back your debt on one credit card, you don’t end up paying late fee on the others. What you can do is pay the minimum amounts required for each credit card and then pay any additional amount towards the debt payment of the card with the highest APR.

This means that you will need to calculate your monthly expenses and then figure out what is left from your pay/salary after you have met these monthly expenses. This will give you the total amount that you can pay towards minimum payments and towards debt payment. It goes without saying that you will need to evaluate how you can limit your monthly expenses to a minimum. Yes, you do need to be disciplined in your spending habits and suppress some of your desires (spending desires) until you get rid of the monster called credit card debt.

Another good option is to check with the credit card company (ies) if they can help you in getting rid of debt by lowering the APR on your credit account.

If after doing all this analysis, you find that it’s proving difficult to get out of credit card debt (may be because the situation is just too grim), you may have to go for other options like debt consolidation or a bank loan or maybe filing for bankruptcy. If you are not comfortable in dealing with this situation all by yourself, you may seek professional help.

The journey is long and tiring, however, the joy of getting rid of debt can’t be compared to anything.