The only problem with this system is sometimes its easy to look at the family budget as “mom’s problem” or the problem of whoever it is that takes care of paying the bills. So when a serious problem comes up like an explosion of credit card bills, mom can get pretty overwhelmed especially if there is no way to curb credit card spending so there can always be enough on hand to pay those bills off.

This is where taking on the challenge of beating high credit card debt has to be everybody’s job. For starters, everyone needs to know the limits on spending. It does no good if the person who does the budget knows exactly how much everyone can spend on food, entertainment and new things but nobody else follows those rules. If the other spouse and the kids are out on the town on a spending spree, that is going to overwhelm the budget.

So if that is one of the sources of credit card abuse in your family, its time for the family to get together and have a discussion. Each member of the family must understand that there is such a thing as fiscal responsibility and if credit card abuse is done by any one member of the family, the privilege of that credit card is going to be taken away.

But the family unit can really become a powerful force for change when it comes to taking on a mountain sized credit card debt. It will take some skill to present the challenge to the family that defeating this foe must be a family job and everybody has to get into the act. But if you do get everybody in on the challenge and take it on as a big adventure, not only will it bring about a lot of family unity, it can be a lot of fun too.

The attack plan must be seen as just that, an aggressive attack on the credit card problem that can threaten the family’s financial safety. That is cutting costs. Have everyone in the family come up with one way to save money each week. It might be as simple as turning off their lights before leaving for school or as ambitious as giving up cable TV or cutting in half the amount of times they have to go to the movies. If each person can contribute one big cost savings a week, that sense of accomplishment and self esteem for pitching in to win this war with credit card debt will pay off.

In the same way, if each member can think of ways to increase income, that can really help the budget out. It might mean the kids picking up more chores so dad and mom can work second jobs for a little while. It might even mean that the kids will do some chores or take part time jobs and add a little to the budget from what they make. But whatever the contribution, if everybody gets into the act, the family can win against credit card debt. And that is a worthwhile family project.

If you have a credit card debt in the thousands of dollars and that interest rate can get above 15%, that is going to mean that a large portion of your monthly payment is going to go toward the interest. And what that means is that your balance will go down slowly which is very discouraging especially if you are also using the credit card so your balance continues to go up and up and up.

How often have you looked at the average interest rate that the credit card companies are charging you and thought, “I sure wish there was some way I could but that interest rate in half or less”? If you could just get that interest rate down under 10% or even better, that step alone would help you put more of the payment money you pay out each month toward reducing the debt. And if that rate could be locked in so it isn’t constantly being jacked up by the credit card company, then you have a real path toward paying off what you owe once and for all.

There may be a way to actually get a credit card rate you can live with from the credit cards services you already are working with. It goes back to that old advice that your mom or dad might have given that goes – “You don’t know until you ask.” That’s right it is very likely that if you call the credit card company and explain to them the situation, they might have the resources to negotiate a rate with you that you can live with and offer you the same services a credit consolidation company would offer.

It’s good to take a moment and look at the world through the eyes of the credit card company. They are in business to keep good customers who pay their bills. For credit card company, the worst kind of customer is one who is constantly late on their payments or doesn’t pay at all so they have to go through the expense of nagging those customers for the money. And customers who have the resources to dump them because their rates are too high are also a big threat to their livelihood because they depend on you needing them and being willing to pay those interest rates and fees.

So rather than see you dump them or take your debt elsewhere like to a credit consolation service or a second mortgage, its better business for the credit card company to cut your rate and continue to make some money off of your debt. Competition is just as intense for the good customers in the credit card world as it is in any other business. So if you pay your bills and are the kind of customer these companies like, you have a bit of leverage with them that you may not have known you had.

Make sure when you call the credit card company to renegotiate your rate that you talk to someone who can actually change things. And bring some clout with you. Be prepared to cancel your credit cards or move your debt to another card or credit service. If you let that credit card company know you are unhappy because of the rate, they will have some kind of program to keep your business. They aren’t going to tell you about it but its there. And if you are persistent and want it bad enough, you can get the credit card companies to play ball your way and give you a premium interest rate you can live with.

The is an additional overhead to how to handle a divorce situation if in addition to splitting your assets, credit card debt that may have been a part of the shared family financial picture also must be split up. To the credit card company, that family credit card is the property of that shared entity which was the marriage. So when the union splits up, the transition from a financial point of view of your accounts separating is not over night.

So one of the many issues to be discussed and a plan made for is how to separate that credit card debt. Whoever continues to hold the family accounts will continue to get those bills and be expected to pay them. Now the least preferable way to handle the debt is to build the payments into any forced settlement agreement such as child support. So at the time the divorce is final, the amount of the debt and the payments that must be made could be calculated and half of that put into the amount that the income generating partner must provide.

But that leaves the management of those credit card debts to one partner and the other one just has to pay a set amount. And if the credit cards get used by either partner, that legal amount would have to constantly be changed and that would prove to be a constant headache of administration.

If the divorce is a shared responsibility so each spouse can work with the other to adjust the financial picture in an advantageous way, then how to separate the credit card debt should be part of that planning. Part of that planning is how to use shared assets to pay down that debt. You may have a home that will be sold, retirement accounts or other assets that were set aside for the future of the marriage. Before you sell those things, close those accounts and distribute the funds, look at using the outcome to retire that shared debt.

But it’s likely some of that debt load will live on past the divorce. In those cases splitting into two individual accounts may be the way to go. In that way, if the family was carrying $10,000 in debt, if each marriage partner walks away with $5000 of the debt, that is at least fair and equitable and how each individual handles that debt is up to them.

There are two ways you can go about splitting the credit card debt. If the debt is with a carrier with whom you can negotiate and conduct a dialog, getting a meeting or having a conference call with the managers there would be productive. The credit card company would far rather negotiate with you how to handle this debt load then deal with it chaotically after the fact. So they may be willing to set up separate individual accounts and split the debt for you.

But you can always use the method many of us have used to manage credit card debt up until now. Each of you can set up some new separate credit card accounts. You no doubt have dozens of credit card offers coming in that you can use to kick off this process. Almost always part of the set up offers for these accounts are balance transfers. So if you take out individual accounts and use the balance transfers to move each partners shared part of the debt to those accounts, that would be a clean way to split the debt up.

There may be adjustments to be made to the 50-50 split idea based on who is the primary bread winner and maybe who ran up the debt and on what. But by negotiating the terms of how you are going to separate the credit card debt when you separate the marriage, that will be one more than that you are handling in a mature and responsible manner in the middle of a very tough situation.

This is an outstanding goal for you if you are just getting your first credit cards. If you know or talk to anyone who is battling tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt, you know what a jail sentence it can be. Once that credit card debt gets that high, the time it will take even under the best of conditions to bring it down runs into the years if not decades. And for all that time, thousands of dollars of money goes down the drain to credit interest that doesn’t buy you any food, tickets to the movies or new clothes. It just goes away with no value to you at all.

But if you are new to the world of credit, getting a credit card is a good thing. But once you get one, keeping it under control is job one. You will find it amazingly easy to use a credit card once it comes. In fact, the retail world makes it difficult to conduct transactions any other way. You can pay for gas at the pump that way and even charge your groceries at the grocery store. And while all of these great uses for credit are helpful, you can end up with a whopper of a credit card bill at the end of the month. And if you don’t pay that bill off, that is the first step on a lifelong jail term in credit card debt jail.

So there are some guidelines you should follow to both use credit responsibly but also to keep building your credit rating which has a real value to you. Remember that what the credit card companies don’t tell you is that making a charge on a credit card is a loan. Even if you just charge ten bucks to go to the movies, you took out an unsecured loan to finance that movie ticket.

So once you start using a credit card, keep in mind that you will be paying back everything you run up on it. It is NOT free money. A good practice is to save every receipt every month and keep a running tally of what you have spent on credit. Now only can you use that to cross check your credit card, it keeps you honest because each time you add a charge to your credit card, you can update your tally so you know for certain that you will be able to pay it off when the bill comes.

Paying off the credit card each month is the number one best way to keep your credit problems under control. Now it isn’t a bad idea to let a little bit of the debt drift from month to month. This builds your credit history and credit rating which will pay you well down the road when you want to buy a larger purchase. But by staying on top of your credit and what is going onto your card, you will start out with the kind of habits that will lead to a life of good credit use without credit card jail. And that is a wonderful gift to give yourself early in life.

It will require you to make and stick to a budget. This may sound dull, but when you think about the alternatives – debt collectors generally do not tend to be particularly courteous people – it is something worth doing. When you have money paid to you at the end of the month, write down what you will need to spend. Food, rent or mortgage payments, transport and general housekeeping, as well as bills for electricity, telephone and other necessities – these are essential outgoings. What you have left over is disposable income.

By doing this monthly you will before long arrive at a point where you know automatically how much money you have. Treating yourself or others need not be a thing of the past. Indeed, without monthly credit repayments to meet, you will have more scope to do this. It is a more serene way to live.

To do this, it is a matter of using credit in ways that the bank won’t recommend. The “monthly” payment on your credit card will usually be set at a small percentage of the balance, and the bank will be happy for you to only ever pay that, because you will pay off more than you ever borrow. Interest, plus any charges, will amount to as much money as you borrowed in the first place. However, you can pay more than the monthly payment, so here is how to make it work for you.

When you take out a credit card, use it as you would use an ATM or debit card. Pay for groceries with it when you get your wages at the end of the month, and then instantly pay the balance off in full. For a while, live off credit and use the money that goes into these costs to make payments to your card. Your credit rating will soar. Your bank will offer you better terms. You’ll be in the driving seat.

Missing one credit card payment is unlikely to strip you of a positive credit rating in one fell swoop. What you need to keep in mind is that there are very good reasons to treat your first missed payment as a warning sign. If you fall into longer term problems with debt, it will be much harder to escape them. For this reason you should focus on that payment and tell yourself that it won’t happen again. Pay attention to making the payment when you can, and meeting the next one when it becomes due. By sticking to this promise to yourself you will make it far more likely that the one missed payment was an aberration. If you think that you will have problems making payments going forward, look for alternative solutions such as consolidation or debt management, rather than letting the problem grow.

Debt counseling is a process that people are using more and more these days, in recognition of the fact that finding yourself unable to make your monthly payments can be an extremely stressful situation. There are many different approaches to debt counseling, a lot of which center around your reasons for ending up in the situation where you have major debt to deal with. If you can address these problems, with the help of a qualified specialist, then you can put yourself on the right track to get rid of your debt once and for all.

Look around for the counselor who you think will help you best, who will understand your reasons for falling into debt and who you think can provide common sense answers to your problems. The situation of having to pay off serious debt is something that can have unreasonable effects on your mental and physical well being. Don’t let it drag you down.

Debt management should, if done correctly, be a way of reducing the debt that you are required to pay by getting in contact with the credit lender and negotiating a stop to interest being placed on your account – along with an agreement not to place late payment fees. Additionally, this process can be paired with a concerted policy of credit repair where an expert will go through your credit file to find the unfair penalties applied and look to overturn them. This means that with time you may be able to borrow again in a situation where it becomes necessary.

Debt management is not ever going to be the most simple process. Banks are tricky to deal with when they feel that they are going to be able to get money out of you one way or another. Think before choosing your debt management partner. The right one can be your pathway to financial security – the wrong one could leave you even worse off.

As well as entering the collections department, you will find that your credit record will contain the information of your missed payment. There are certain kinds of borrowing that are available to people with perfect credit ratings, including loans that have extremely low interest rates. A black mark on your credit rating will be enough to disbar you from ever qualifying for such lending, and will mean that any credit you do get will be very much on the lender’s terms.

Borrowing money can be the solution to a problem in a number of situations, but it is important to realize that without the continued means to pay the money back you will be placed in a very troublesome situation. Sometimes the best way to deal with the pitfalls of unsecured lending is just not to borrow at all. It may make for a difficult situation, but it will be one without unpleasant letters and phone calls.