How to Quit Using Your Credit Card: A Habit-Breaking Guide
Even though you’re getting into more and more debt, you can’t seem to cut back on using your credit card. For both necessary and unnecessary purchases, many people quickly become dependent on credit cards.
Borrowing money from a creditor to pay for something could be appealing, but you still need to be financially stable to repay the loan on time. Paying the bills on time is essential to avoid future hassles. Creditors may contact you via intimidating letters or even phone calls.
Get out of here!
Cut off your use of credit cards immediately if you wish to prevent any of those things from happening or if you find yourself in over your head with debt. Thankfully, you can do it in a few different ways.
To begin, there is widespread agreement that terminating your credit card account is the optimal course of action. You can deactivate your credit card with just one phone call to the cardholder. Doing so may even help you overcome the persistent urge to use a credit card when shopping. Consider the possibility that your credit card would be declined in one instance; the shame you would feel would be enough to make you deactivate your card.
Another great strategy for quitting for good is shredding. An office shredder is suitable because it is equally effective on plastic and paper. You can’t use your credit card anymore because it’s in bits. In the absence of a shredder, scissors will suffice. To make it difficult for would-be thieves to decipher the credit card number, simply cut the card into little pieces.
Just leaving the credit cards lying about is a great method to cut down on their use, especially when you’re out and about. Take out your credit card before you go shopping if you’re not into closing or shredding. Because you are about to spend your own money, you will have to give serious consideration to whether or not you truly need the item before making a purchase.
What You Can Do to Avoid the Shock
Your use of credit cards for purchases has been going on, but have you ever considered how much money you lose each year due to interest payments alone? Even more shocking is the length of time it might take you to pay off your credit cards in their entirety. Everything boils down to the figures, and these will startle you to the point that you may think twice about charging anything else.
To illustrate the point, consider a $1,000 balance with an interest rate of 14%. At a $25 monthly payment, it will take approximately 4.5 years to pay it off. You could expect to pay a total of $347.55 in interest when you settle the balance.
You might wish to put a permanent halt to using credit cards now that you know what they can do. You can control your spending and avoid using credit cards if you develop the self-control to say “no” when you want to buy something on the spur of the moment. You won’t have to worry about fixing your credit if you always give thought before using your credit card.