What Do I Owe  

And who should I pay first

Live Debt Free

 It's time to organize your credit card debt.  First of all forget the squeaky wheel who is calling you several times a day. Grit your teeth and go thru this exercise first, then we'll tell you how to handle the collection calls.

If you are like most Americans you have multiple credit cards and you probably do not know exactly what the balance is on each, and more importantly, what the interest rate and terms are. What you probably have is a general knowledge of what the minimum payment is and that is how you decide who gets what.

You need to get a grasp on this and you need to get it now because the whole credit card scene is going to change in a couple of months unless the government steps in. Interest rates could potentially go through the roof even if you have a good credit history. We'll explain what you can do to minimize the impact in another section.

The first step is to gather the most recent statement from each of your credit card providers. If you can't find them, or if you don't get paper statements, go to their online site and get the information there.

On an Excel spreadsheet, or just a piece of paper, you want to set up columns as follows:

• Card Name
• Account Number
• Purchase Balance
• Purchase Interest Rate
• Transfer Balance
• Transfer Interest Rate
• Cash Advance Balance
• Cash Advance Interest Rate
• Total Balance
• Current Minimum Payment
• Date Account Opened (usually you can find this on your card)

This becomes your basic tool to analyze what your payment strategy should be. This is an important document so save it, but also print a copy.

So now you know which credit card providers you owe, how much you owe, and you can eyeball the interest rates and determine who costs you the most money to use. We'll provide you with a cool Google tool that will let you do "what ifs" on each of these cards to see how payments affect balance and interest paid in a little while.

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