How to Pay Off Your Credit Cards When No One Wants to Help You

This post is sponsored by Debt.com.

America is drowning in debt—and credit cards are dragging us down. According to statistics from Debt.com:

• We owe more than $1 trillion on our cards. That’s enough to buy every NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball team in the country
• Nearly two-thirds (over 65%) of us carry monthly balances. We’re paying the credit card companies staggering interest rates each month
• We owe enough to buy our families food for a year. The average household owes more than $16,000 on their credit cards

And while a common narrative is that people run up credit card balances with frivolous spending, the reality is that most people facing challenges with debt didn’t have any other options. Stagnant incomes, rising prices, and the ever-increasing cost of living is leaving millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Then, when a disaster strikes, these people are forced to go into debt just to stay afloat.

Meet Diane, a single mom who found a solution

That’s the type of situation that Diane faced after she lost her job. Although she was out of work for less than two months, as a single-mother of two she was already stretched thin with no emergency savings to fall back on. When she her company laid her off, all of her bills, groceries, and other necessities went on credit—it was the only choice she had. The job loss created a major setback she’s still working to recover from.

While a common narrative is that people run up credit card balances with frivolous spending, the reality is that most people facing challenges with debt didn’t have any other options.

Once she got a new job, Diane was optimistic that she’d be able to catch up. But getting ahead of her credit card debt proved to be harder than she’d anticipated. Her new job covered all the expenses in her budget, but there wasn’t much left over. She didn’t have extra cash to make more than the minimum payments on her credit cards. And any time an unexpected expense came up, she was forced to put that on a credit card, too. Instead of regaining stability and control over her debt, her balances were slowly getting higher.

Things got worse in 2017 when interest rates started to rise. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates three times in 2017 and another four times in 2018. Since almost all credit cards have variable interest rates, consumer interest rates gradually increased. And anyone with high balances like Diane also saw their monthly minimum payment requirements increase...

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