“Loose weight, exercise more, quit a bad habit, and GET OUT OF DEBT.” Do these goals sound familiar to you? Most Americans will set New Year’s resolutions in the next two weeks and I have money on MONEY.

According to a recent survey, 58 million people are planning to make a financial resolution this New Year’s Eve.

With consumer debt at an all-time high, it’s no wonder money, and keeping more of it, is on our minds at this time of the year.

Here are a few suggestions to begin taking control of your money:

• Don’t get any deeper into debt. Save the credit card with the most favorable terms and either lock away in a safe deposit box or cut the rest up. Be sure to keep a low interest rate card handy for emergencies.
• Pay more than the minimum balance. Much more.
• Shop around for cards with low interest rates, but beware of come-ons that offer a low initial rate and then take a big jump after an introductory period expires.
• You have heard this before, but it is sound advice, move balances on cards with high interest rates to cards with lower interest rates.
• If you’re having difficulties with any of your lenders, approach and deal with them personally. Not only will they appreciate your initiative, but will be far more responsive down the line if you’re having further repayment difficulties. The one thing that irritates them most is someone avoiding the problem.
• Use your savings to pay down debt. It makes no sense to earn 1 to 3% interest on your savings account while paying 12 or 15 or 18% interest on credit cards.
• Come up with a written plan for reducing your debt systematically.

Like most things in life, taking a step back from it all, setting some goals and starting to get some simple things right can make a huge difference on the big money picture for 2006.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2005 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Debt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.