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A credit card is a life support system for a shopaholic! Everyone is now taking advantage of credit card these days. It is made of plastic and has magnetic stripe. The purpose is to facilitate its customers by lending money to them when they are out of cash for their expenditures on the behalf of promise of future payments. Whether it’s shopping or for some emergency purpose, customers can always take advantage of this plastic money. It has simplified the transactions in every walk of life. As the name implies, the banks and private organizations give credit to customers.

Credit Card! A Big Responsibility

Where credit card is helping people in many ways on the other hand credit card debt payments is a big responsibility for everyone. Credit card has surely made our life much easy as we just need to show the card to the intended person and we are done with our work.

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Credit cards can be a useful way of borrowing money in the short term, or giving your budget a temporary boost from time to time.

However, if you don’t repay the debt as quickly as you thought you would, you could end up paying a lot more in interest than you expected.

Here we’ll look at keeping on top of credit card debt.

Try to make more than the minimum monthly payments

Credit card companies usually require a minimum monthly payment of between 2-5% of the balance. Though this may seem like a relatively small amount just looking at it on a monthly basis, it can quickly add up if you have multiple credit cards you’re repaying.

Of course, the most important thing is that you make your minimum payments every month – otherwise you could risk extra charges and damage to your credit rating. However

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Depending on just how old you are, you might remember a time when credit cards didn’t exist.  The world revolved around a cash and carry system, one that didn’t provide rewards or security on purchases.  Once the cash exchanged hands, that was that.  These days however, consumers expect to be rewarded for buying things and one of the cards they can do that with is the Marriott Rewards® Premier Credit Card.

Rewards points are earned using your Marriott Rewards® Premier Credit Card for every purchase made.  Depending on what you buy, Chase can provide up to 5 points per dollar spent.  The current breakdown of rewards points is as follows:

• 5 points for every dollar spent at Marriott locations
• 2 points for every dollar spent on airline, restaurant and car rental purchases
• 1 point for every dollar spent on everything else

With rewards cards, the APR is usually pretty high, however the Marriott Rewards® Premier Credit Card offers a reasonable 15.24% variable APR.  This card does not include an introductory rate for purchases or balance transfers, and it does have a $85 annual fee; waived during the first year.  A free night each year should make up for that cost but sometimes paying an up-front cost is not ideal.

Earlier this year, we wrote about the standard version of the Marriott Rewards® Premier Credit Card and the four free night stay at select Marriott locations.  That credit card included a low purchase APR, good rewards program and low annual fee of $30, which was waived during the first year.  An excellent card for travelers to say the least, however for anyone in need of something even better, albeit for a slightly increased fee, consider the Marriott Rewards® Premier Credit Card.

In the state of California, there are thousands of people facing huge credit card balances. Most of which are caused by the lack of income resource that have resulted from massive unemployment that occurred all over the state. The rate of unemployment in California has reached over 11.9%, which is the highest unemployment rate in all of the US. This high unemployment rate hassled to immense credit card usage. Since a lot of jobless individuals have no income resource, they resorted to their credit cards even for their day to day expenses like gas, food and grocery items. All these accumulated expenses are not paid off in full hence it earns high interest over long period of time. Some people even neglect paying their dues on time, which as we all are aware of results in late payment fees and other penalty charges. And because of these a lot of people ended up with huge piled up debts. Credit card debt rate in California is at $21,055 per average citizen, which is actually one of the highest debt rates in United States. Read full post…

American Express has claimed an impressive five out of 11 prizes in this year’s uSwitch Credit Card Customer Satisfaction Awards.

The firm, which slipped from top spot last year, has reclaimed its crown with 92 per cent of its customers happy with its overall service.

Jose Vazquez-Mendez, VP Customer Service UK, American Express, remarked: “Customer satisfaction has always been a top priority for American Express and it’s good to see that our Cardmembers are happy with the service we deliver them.”

He added: “However, it’s important that we do not rest on our laurels and that we build on this success so that our customers continue to receive the level of customer service expected of us as one of the largest card providers in the world.”

Founded in 1850, American Express is a global financial services company headquartered in New York City.

It is best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveller’s cheque businesses . Read full post…

Credit card debt is a luxury many people take on, only to find that it hurts them financially. Having credit cards can entice you to spend more, make decisions to make purchases easier (i.e. not requiring thought), and allow you to live outside your means – at least until the statement comes or you reach your credit limit. However, you can escape credit card debt (and live a happier life as a result):

1. EMERGENCY FUND: Start by developing an emergency fund; it is simply too easy for your well-laid intentions of never using your credit card again to be brushed aside in the event of an emergency. By building an emergency fund (ideally one equal to six months’ salary), you can be confident that you have the money to handle any of life’s surprises, no matter how big, without resorting to “plastic.” Besides, how nice would it be to know you “have it covered,” regardless what “it” is.

2. FREEZE YOUR CREDI

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There are millions of people with balances on their credit cards.  It seems like once we rack up credit card debt we continue to do so, and continue to keep paying the minimum payments.  Doing both of those can hurt you real bad in the end.  A lot of people find themselves paying hundreds, if not thousands extra just because they weren’t disciplined with paying off their credit cards.

If you are looking for help with your credit card balances, here are 4 helpful tips that can get you to pay them off sooner than you may think.

1. The first thing you want to do is create a budgetfor each month.  Before the month even begins, figure out how much you’re going to make.  Then, figure out how much will go to bills, how much you will save for spending cash, and how much you will store away for your savings.  When we can figure out these numbers ahead of time, we usually are more disciplined with where our money goes.
2. To finish certain tasks in life, we need to have discipline.  Whether you want to make money, lose weight, or you want to pay off your credit cards, you can’t do it without discipline.  To get this discipline, think about why you want to pay off your credit cards and how it can help you down the road.
3. Doing something as simple as staying in one night and not going out with your friends can save you a few bucks which in turn can be put towards your credit card balances.  Skip out on leisure and entertainment once and a while so you can save this money!
4. If you have multiple cards with multiple balances, I highly recommend that you pay the ones off with the highest interest rate first.  Pay the minimum for low interest rates, and as much as you can for the highest!

Paying off your credit card balances can take time.  Unless we get a huge lump sum of money thrown at us it won’t be done overnight.  So, have patience, discipline and motivation to finally pay these off for good!

It’s so easy to never use cash nowadays. Banks and credit card companies make it easier and easier to complete quick transactions using fast passes or check cards or all sorts of new inventions and gimmicks. However, it is important to still use cash because it makes the spender more aware of their spending habits, and therefore a more responsible spender.

Using cash for small purchases such as coffee and lunch makes the spender more aware of how they spend on a daily basis and how much money they have left. With credit and debit cards, these small transactions lose value as only a number lessens in each value each time it is swiped. The user may keep a receipt, but more often than not any further bookkeeping is ignored. These small transactions add up; buying a $2 coffee every morning equals $10 a week, which adds up to $560 a year. T

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