Connie Livingston - Consultant, Coach, Strategist, and Speaker

Managing Credit Card Debt: The First Two Steps If You're Behind On Credit Card Payments

Using your Excel spreadsheet, identify the amount you can pay each month to each card. If you missed the earlier post on tracking monthly income and expenses using this tool, feel free to comment below or email me at clivings@sover.net
Call the credit card company and say you have a plan to make future payments:

Take notes - date, who you talk to
Tell them your plan and how much monthly you’d like to pay (this may be less than the minimum monthly payment)

The company would rather have some cash than none at all. Your proposal will mean they won’t have to waste their time and money in collecting debt.

You will most likely need to ask for a supervisor who has the authority to make this agreement with you. You may also need to call the company more than once to make this request.

Additional steps later this week so stay tuned.

Take Action:

Identify how much you can put toward your credit cards each month

The Third Step to Paying Less Interest On Your Credit Cards

To pay your credit cards off more quickly, you can double the monthly minimum payment. This assumes you are not charging anything else on your credit card.

This will lower the interest rate because the faster you pay off the balance, the less interest you’ll pay over time
Start with the highest-interest credit cards
Have a good emergency savings account in place first. More on this later, but start with three to six month's of household expenses in emergency savings. Have this in place before you pay extra toward your credit cards.

Take action:

List your monthly income and expenses
Determine how much you have left each month to put toward savings or your credit card balance
Reward yourself for taking action: You deserve it - it's not always easy to sit down and look at your finances!

Good luck with it!

Copyright 2012 Connie Livingston All rights reserved

Step Number Two: Reducing Interest Rates On Your Credit Cards

Move the balance on your higher interest rate cards to your lower-rate cards

Be careful here

You don’t want to max out your cards - this can negatively affect your credit score
Leave a good cushion of available credit on your card

Call the credit card company and tell them you’d like to transfer the balance from a higher rate card to this one

Ask them: What is the process to do this?
Double-check with them that you’re not maxing out the card by doing this

Take action:

Pull out all of your credit card bills
List the name of each credit card, the interest rate you're paying, the current balance, and the available credit amount
Identify where you may be able to move funds from the higher-rate to the lower-rate cards
Call the credit card company!

Good luck with it and please post your experiences with the process and any questions here!

Copyright 2012 Connie Livingston All rights reserved

The First Step To Reducing Interest On Your Credit Cards

Ask your credit card company to reduce the interest rate on your card

Make a list of the reasons you think the credit card company should lower your rate such as:

You’veconsistently paid your bills on time
You’ve been a customer for years
You have a good credit score

Do a search for credit cards on the internet:

What is the lowest rate credit cards are charging right now?
Note the best interest rates (don't include the 0% interest introductory rate cards)

Call the credit card company:

Take notes
Write down the date of your call and the person you’re speaking to
Tell them why you’re calling:
You want to request that your interest rate be reduced
Mention the interest rates that credit cards are now charging - these are less than what you’re paying
Tell them you’d like to continue to be a customer of theirs
Tell them the reasons you’ve listed
They will most likely tell you they don’t have the authority do do that
Ask for their supervisor:
Note the name of the supervisor
Re-state your request
If you’re turned down by the supervisor, call again
You can call back 2-3 times until you get a positive response
If you have a good credit score and track record with the company they should eventually lower the rate

You can also use this approach with other negotiations with the credit card company:

Annual fees
Late charges
Etc.

Take Action:

This week, write down the reasons why your credit card company should consider lowering the interest rate on your credit card

Good luck with it and please comment here on how it goes or if any questions pop up!

Copyright 2012 Connie Livingston All rights reserved

Two First Steps For Getting Out of Credit Card Debt For Good!

Many of us have credit card debt of some kind. Maybe we lost a job, had large medical bills, or are spending beyond our means. Following are the first two steps to getting out of credit card debt for good:

Stop using your credit cards. Leave them at home so you won't be tempted to use them.
Use good old-fashioned cash or a debit card for your purchases. You won't be able to spend more than what's in your bank account this way.

Take Action:

This week, start using cash or a debit card for all your purchases

Three Steps For Tracking Personal Monthly Household Cash Flow

Following are three steps to getting on top of your monthly income and expenses:

Keep track of your daily expenses: Write down your purchases asap after you make them - in a small notebook or on your smartphone. Everyone in your household who spends money does this.
Decide on a format for keeping track of your expenses and income. This could be an Excel spreadsheet or a pad of paper. Monthly income is recorded here as well as spending categories like groceries, gas for the car, and meals at a restaurant.
Meet weekly with the other adults in your household to review the spending this week. Update the Excel spreadsheet with what you've spent so far this month and what's left until the end of the month in each category. If you spend $300 per month on groceries and you've spent $150 by the middle of the month, you know you have $150 left in that category for the rest of the month. If it looks like there will be a short-fall in a category, talk with your partner about how best to handle it.

This is such a simple system, but it works! I've used it for almost 20 years and it has helped me stay on track even when income has been low and expenses high.

Call To Action:

Start tracking your daily expenses this week!

What Is A Personal Blueprint For Success?

I have had an opportunity to partner successfully with clients who are experiencing great

change in their lives. Without realizing it, they come to me already equipped with a blueprint: approaches they have used in the past when they came up against challenges in their lives. They feel overwhelmed and afraid and, in that state of mind, they have forgotten how they successfully tackled past challenges.

They don’t realize that they have the answers already inside of them and that they don’t have to “start from scratch” in facing the current challenge. I help them see that they have successfully managed change in the past. We identify together what mental outlooks, practical tools, and self-care regimes they used during those times.

These become the beginning of their blueprint. I help them find additional approaches, tailored to their identity and personality. They have a robust, fully fleshed out blueprint at the conclusion of our work together. The next time a major life change occurs, amid their fear and confusion, they can rely on their personal blueprint knowing that it has worked well for them. They feel relieved and encouraged no matter what challenges swirl around them.

Take Action: What major transition did you successfully navigate in the past? What were the approaches you used at the time that helped support this successful outcome? Make a list of them. You'll have a chance to add to these in future blog posts.

Copyright 2012 Connie Livingston All rights reserved