How My Credit Card Crisis Started

I think it was back in 1994 that I recieved my first credit card, I was going on holiday and needed one as a security deposit for rental car. I didnt end up hiring a car, but had a great holiday in Byron Bay, and came back with a small credit card bill for $3-400 which covered some SCUBA diving and a few touristy t-shirts.

As I was making these minor purchases, I kept telling myself that I’d pay them off in a couple of months…….

It never happened.

To cut a long story short I ended up with 4 credit cards, with a total credit limit in excess of $20,000 and at times all 4 cards were at there limit.

So this blog is about taking control. My attitude has been that if I can meet the minimum monthly payments and maintain a half decent standard of living then I’m doing okay.

But deep down I know this is wrong and will only lead to an eternity of revolving debt. I must take the high road and deal with the omnipresent force of modern media advertising that has turned me into a glutonous consumer (I lurve my new iPod)

If I make an effort to keep this blog updated then I will always be aware of my burdensome borrowings, and will be consistently concious of my outstanding balances and ways I can make them shrink and grow.

I vow that I will blog every cent I put on the credit cards, and also every cent I pay off them.

Alas I can see the financially wise sitting there, peering down their malformed noses over the top of their out dated half framed specticals telling me just to cut the cards up and never charge anything to them again. But this is the Naughties (ie 80’s 90’s 00’s think about it you’ll work it out) and a credit card provides a level of convenience that I’m not prepared to go without. I can not remember the last time I wasted a lunch hour standing in line to pay a bill and I plan to keep it that way.

Hence my goals are as follows



Gold card one gets priority because it contains personal expenses, the other two cards were used to fund a used to be successful internet business that I lost interest in and supported for far too long (that’s a whole other story). The reason I mention it is, that as the cards were used to fund a business, the interest component is tax deductable, effectively reducing the interest I pay by 30%. The business is still continuing in a much reduced capacity, and is covering it’s expenses, except for the minimum monthly payments on the credit cards.

If I am to pay off my credit cards in two years, I will need to pay for anything new I put on the cards and find $1,000 a month on top of that.

Sounds easy you say ?

Consider this, my current take home pay is around $2,300 a month, take out the $1,000 in payments, plus $200 in automatic bill payments (for insurance and internet), say a ballbark $800 a month for rent (though I am living rent free for another month at the most) will leave me with $300 a month to pay for everything else, which just isn’t going to happen on my current income. (especially when I am on employed short term contracts so have to plan for the fact I may be out of work at any stage)

So after much indecision I have decided that the only practical way to deal with this situation is to increase my income.

Now I just need to work out how.