“Starting to see it go in the right direction helped me amp it up,” she says.
According to the Federal Reserve, revolving debt, which includes credit card balances, continued to rise throughout 2022, increasing at an annual rate of 10.4% as of October, the most recent numbers available.
Elaine Grogan Luttrull, a financial educator and counselor in Dublin, Ohio, says that before making a plan to pay off the debt, it helps to reflect on how it came to be in the first place.
“Let’s not berate ourselves but be solution-focused,” she adds.
Listing all of your debt with the accompanying interest rates helps you get organized and decide what to pay off first, Luttrull says.
Luttrull says that if your student loan payments are paused, you could use that money to pay down credit card debt, for example.
Emma Johnson, founder of the website wealthysinglemommy.com, suggests combing through all of your banking and credit card statements to identify recurring costs you can immediately cut.
Cedric Nash, author of “Why Should White Guys Have All the Wealth?” and founder of the nonprofit Black Wealth Summit, says that in our tech-heavy world, options abound: “There’s loads you can do from your living room.
If you can qualify for a credit card with a 0% introductory annual percentage rate, then transferring your existing credit card debt onto that card can give you more time to pay it off without accruing additional interest, says Matt Elliott, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pulse Financial Planning in Rochester, Minnesota.
Rewarding yourself as you achieve milestones, such as paying off a credit card, is an essential piece of staying motivated, Nash says.