As per the current reports from Experian, a leading credit rating agency, averagely Americans have an outstanding balance of more than $ 4200 on their credit cards like Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover card. This figure shows that the credit card debt average has gone down by at least 4% since the previous year. However, in certain cities the average card debt is much higher than the rest of the country.
The credit rating agency Experian has identified 5 states with the highest credit card debts throughout the country. The leading state is San Antonio. This state boosts an average credit card balance of $5177 which is almost 21% above the national average on credit card debt. The second on the list is Jacksonville with $5,115 debt with an average consumer. The third on the chart is Atlanta with $4960 and Honolulu and Dallas taking the fourth and fifth place with an average of $4939 and $4936 respectively.
One of the best ways to tackle high debts is to directly approach your creditors for a lower interest rate. Depending upon your previous payment history, your creditors might offer you a lower interest rate so that you can pay off your debt. Balance transfer is usually a good threat to get better rates from your credit card company.
Another option is balance transfer on credit cards is one of the most effective ways to tackle such high credit card debt. Most credit cards are offering a customer 0% introductory interest rate for a promotional period. This promotion period can be within the range of 6 months to 24 months. Hence this gives you the opportunity to pay off your debts with 0% interest during this period and you can get this burden off your back.
Consolidation of debt: Debt consolidation can help you take out one loan in order to pay off all your other loans. So if you have a house which you can put up as collateral then you can get lower rates and consolidate all your loans into one. The only risk with this method is that you can lose your house if you do not maintain timely payments after consolidating your debt. The advantage of this method is that you will have to make only one payment which will be less than the total of what you have been paying to all your creditors.
You need to stick to a strict budget in order to get out of debt. Making minimum payments each month only prolongs the agony hence you should find ways in which you can pay off your debts.