I was discouraged – it seemed like one easy to handle monthly payment was a great option. So I decided to just sit down and do it myself. I made a list of all the bills I paid each month and noted their due dates. Then I marked a calendar with all of my pay days. I assigned each bill to a pay day so that I basically sat down every payday with a pre-determined amount of money to pay toward all the bills due before the next payday. For credit cards, my calculated payment was double the minimum. (Before I did this, I’d been paying the minimums and getting nowhere fast.) I stayed organized and was even able to follow up with companies if I didn’t receive my bill on time.

Balance transfers are a great way to go if you qualify because they often have the lowest rates out of these options. However, the terms are generally shorter, so you need to be able to pay them off within the balance transfer period, or at least make as much progress as possible. Opening a new line credit may affect your credit score a little bit, but that shouldn’t matter too much if you are committed to getting out of debt because you won’t be using more credit in the near future and by the time you have your cards and other debt paid off your score should be higher than it was before.

I definitely think the balance transfer cards are the way to go, as long as it doesn’t ding your credit score too much from using up too much of your credit line.