You pull out the credit card statements each and every month.  It seems like it’s never going to end.  Bill, after bill, how the heck are you supposed to pay these things off?  In all honesty, if you don’t have the money, there’s going to be no short term solution for fighting your credit card debt.

While there are solutions, you’re going to have to promise me that you’re going to work hard, have motivation, and tell yourself that you won’t stop, until your debt balance is a big fat $0.

Start with a budget - The first thing that you’re going to want to do is start with a budget.  Without a budget, you’re going to have no idea on where to go.  If you’re just throwing money at each bill each and every month, it’s going to be very hard to be organized.  A while back, I created a great budget spreadsheet that you can use to create your own budget.

Start with the highest interest rate - You can pay thousands over the life of your loan, if you’re just paying the minimum.  What you’re going to want to do is list each and every credit card.  You’re going to want to list the interest rate, the balance owed, as well as the minimum balance.  Here’s what it will look like.

Attack the highest – Now, with the example mentioned above, you’re going to put as much money as possible toward the Visa card, while you pay the minimum off on the other 2.  For example, if you have $450 left over at the end of the month to apply toward your debt, you will put $74 toward Mastercard, $55 toward Discover, and the remaining $321 toward Visa.  This way, you’re getting rid of the highest interest rate first.

Get another job - If you have to, get another job.  If you’re finding that it’s going to take you 10 years to pay off your debts, you may want to pick up a $8/hr 20 hour a week job.  No matter what they say about the economy, you can head to any job seeking site such as SnagAJob and find that there are thousands of jobs in your area!

Focus on the future – Watch your budget today and focus on what needs to be done.  How bad do you wan to get rid of your debt?  When your net worth is in the negatives, you can count on working for a long time.  How cool would it be to start saving and retiring for the future?  It can happen if you work hard enough!

There’s no magic formula, there’s no magic button in your backyard, and the more you read online, you will find that only one thing is going to get rid of debt, and that is money!