How I Paid Off My Credit Cards...

It all started in high school....I was shopping at American Eagle (yep), I wanted an outfit, but I didn't have enough money to pay for it at the time. So what did my non-responsible self do? I decided to open a credit card. Want to know how much limit they gave a non-credit-having teen? $100. Ha. That was such a blessing in disguise. 

That was probably the start to my credit card addiction. 

Freshman year of college, I opened up an Express and Victoria's Secret card, almost simultaneously. I wanted to be fashionable and again, had no money. 

Senior year came the Best Buy card. I really wanted a digital camera and of course I had to have the picture printer to go along with it. Later, I went on to buy my ex-boyfriend a Xbox. #dumbass

After college came the Saks (David Yurman ring and bracelet? Yes please!), Pottery Barn (wedding gifts galore), and South Carolina Federal (my bank - so that I could charge whatever I wanted!). 

You know what all of that gets you? 
$7,000 in credit card debt and hardly anything to show for it. 

Back in August of 2010, when Cameron and I really started getting serious about our relationship, he created a balance sheet and income statement for me that I would fill out every month. It helped me see where my money was going and it was an easy way to watch the balances of my credit cards go down. I probably didn't start cracking down on my cards until last year when I had about $4,000 left to pay off. But in that short amount of time (roughly a year), I managed to pay the rest of it off with the method below. I would use my work bonuses, tax refunds, etc towards it. Anything I could! 

Here's what worked for me:
The Dave Ramsey Snowball Plan

-I took the credit card with the lowest balance and focused on that one first. I would pay the minimum payments on the rest of the cards, and use whatever extra money I had, plus the minimum payment, towards the card I was focusing on. Dave said it best when he said, "You need some quick wins in order to stay pumped enough to get out of debt completely." Each time I paid off another credit card, it felt awesome, and turned into more of a game for me to see how fast I could pay off the next one. 

-After I paid off a card, I would add that money that I normally paid towards it, towards the next one. My bank account didn't know the difference because I was paying the same amount each month towards the cards, but the card that I was focusing on, was getting 2, 3, or 4 times the amount of the of the minimum payment. 

It's as simple as that! 

I hope this short little post may help you in some way in paying off your credit card debt, if you are trying to!

By the way, I am in NO way promoting this kind of behavior. It was very stupid on my end and obviously I've spent years (and LOTS of interest) paying these cards off.