Holiday Debt

With January, the holiday season comes to an end and people start getting back into a normal schedule. And then the bills start to arrive in the mail. Now that all the various credit card statements are in, it is time to sit down and figure out how to tackle this holiday debt and get your head above water.


While some people’s first instinct is to hide from their debt, this way of behaving doesn’t help get anyone out of debt. It is actually very empowering to sit down and figure out exactly how much you owe.


This also happens to be the first step in creating an action plan to get out debt, as well. An easy way to do this is to sit down with all the different bills that have come in, and on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet program such as Excel, write down each credit card and the balance owed on the card. Next to that, write down what the minimum payment is and when it is due.


When paying back debt some people prefer to start by paying off the card with the lowest balance first. Paying off these smaller debts and crossing them off the list gives people a real sense of accomplishment and acts a motivator to pay down the larger debts.


Once a person has finished paying down one debt, they can use the money they were paying on that debt and put that amount towards another card to get the next debt paid off even faster.
If you created your list in an Excel program, it will be very easy to sort the debts from low to high. If you wrote them down on paper, you can simply reorder them on another sheet.


Once this step is over, you can feel confident that you are on the way out of debt. You have faced your fear and are now armed with the information that will help you plan your next step in eliminating holiday debt.