How to Eliminate Unsecured Credit Cards

Eliminating unsecured credit cards is a key to getting out from under debt. It also is a great way to rebuild credit and budget your finances. High-balance credit cards with high interest rates can dramatically lower a credit score. Cards with more than 50 percent of the balance used make a negative impact on your credit score. Therefore, ridding yourself of these types of credit cards should greatly improve your credit score.

Instructions

1

Remove the credit cards from your wallet, cut them up or put a freeze on their use. The first step in eliminating unsecured credit card debt is to stop using the card. Therefore, the only way to stop accumulating debt is to destroy or hide the cards.

2

Gather all of your unsecured credit card statements and systematically jot down the balances and minimum payments of each card in a notebook. Start with the card that has the highest interest rate vs. the card with the highest balance. Eliminating the card with the high interest rate will save you more money than tackling a card a higher balance but lower interest rate.

3

Determine the amount of additional money, other than the minimum payment, that you can afford to set aside to pay down your unsecured credit cards. Even an additional $30 a month can dramatically affect the length of time it will take you to pay off a high-interest credit card.

4

Contact your creditors and ask the representative if she can lower your interest rate. If you are a long-time customer with a solid payment history, most creditors would rather keep you as a customer. Therefore, it does not hurt to ask credits to grant your request by lowering your annual percentage rate.

5

Make multiple payments on your credit card account instead of paying your minimum payment every month. Making weekly payments adds an extra month of payments to your account. If you can make a payment every week, that would equal 13 months' worth of payments, compared to 12 months' worth of payments using a monthly schedule. Weekly payments will reduce the amount of time you spend paying on a credit card, thus saving you money on interest charges.