SayLending.com

Credit card debt is the fasted growing debt among American households.

Understand these basic facts:

• According to the American Bankruptcy Institute, nearly 85-90% of bankruptcy filings were due in part to excessive credit card debt.
  
  
• Households receive on average 20 credit card offers per year.
  
  
• Credit card companies make money when you become a "revolving" credit card holder — which means the holder maintains a balance from month-to-month.
  
  
• Credit card companies make money when you pay only the minimum required amount — which minimum amount is interest plus a small percentage (around 0.5%) of the balance outstanding.
  
  
• Credit card companies make money when you accept and then spend up to the credit limit offered.
  

With these facts in mind, the card company's business strategy is to get you to:

• accept their card using pre-approval offers;
• charge out the maximum credit limit awarded;
• pay interest-only payments each month;
• and maintain a credit balance from month-to-month.
  

Now consider this:

If you paid just the minimum payment on a $4,800 credit balance at the average annual rate of 17% plus 0.5% for principal reduction, it would take you over 21 years to pay off your balance (considering that you did not have any other charges).

That means paying $13,376.35 in interest charges alone, for a total repayment of $18,176.35 for the privilege of charging $4,800!

No wonder that credit cards are one of the lender's most profitable product lines.

Use these calculators below to estimate your payoff schedule and amount.

Use the "Monthly Payment" calculator
to estimate the amount you need per month to payoff your debt over a given period of time (in months).

— enter the best interest rate you can receive
— enter the number of years you need to repay the debt
— press "calculate" to estimate repayment amount

Use the "Repayment Period" calculator
to estimate the time it will take to payoff your debt with a budgeted fixed amount that you can pay each month.

— enter the best interest rate that you can receive
— enter the amount you would like to pay
— press "calculate" to estimate payoff terms

Download our "Debt Payoff" worksheet
to run your numbers on your desktop: download worksheet

Monthly Payment Repayment Period Debt Balance: $ Debt Balance: $ Interest Rate: % Interest Rate:   % Repayment Term: months Monthly Payment: $ * * Monthly Payment: $ Repayment Period:   years months

Analyze Your Pay Off Options:

How you manage your credit cards

is a key measurement that credit reporting agencies use when quantifying the credit rating of an applicant.

Card holders who pay their card balances on time, at the required amount, will receive a favorable credit rating that translates into lower interest rates on mortgages and consumer loans.

Card holders who are late in paying their credit cards payments,

often not paying the required amount as due, will receive a less-than-favorable credit rating that translates into rejected applications or higher interest rates for mortgages and consumer loans.

We have two credit card management programs for review:

Program A: for card holders who control their credit card use and payoff credit card balances in full each month.

Includes a FREE download on maximizing credit card rebates.

Program B: for card holders who carry credit card debt and pay only the minimum balance each month.