From Money Save Money

How fast should you prepay your credit debt

Posted in: Financial News
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Aug 22, 2010 - 11:35:44 PM

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If you are carrying a balance on your credit cards, and adding to it every month, you have to stop today. Once you transfer your credit card balance to a new lower interest card, you should notice a significant drop in your monthly payment. Instead of paying only the new lower balance,continue to make the same monthly payments as before. Its called prepaying your credit card debt. For example let you are owing $5000 on your credit card and that card is charging you 18% interest per year. The interest on the debt comes to $75 per month and let’s say your minimum payment due is $100 per month. If you transfer the debt to a card that is charging you only 6% interest the monthly interest on the account is only $25 per month, so your minimum payment will fall to around $40 per month. So you can save $60 per month. When you prepay loan, you are effectively earning a rate of return on your money equal to the net interest you are paying.

If your credit card has a 16% interest rate and prepay that debt every dollar you prepay effectively earn 16%.if your debt is carrying a 6% rate your prepayment dollars effectively earn 6%. When you factor in how compounding works you end up saving the percentage rate you are being charged. But with a credit card all of the savings comes at the end in the form of not having to pay out the remaining years of the loan.

In addition to putting every dollar you can toward your monthly credit card payment, consider paying half of your bill every other week. What you are doing is actually making twenty six semimonthly payments, or thirteen annual payments. If you are already adding an extra one twelfth to each monthly payment, which is an another way of adding in a thirteenth payment per year you will be adding a second thirteenth payment per year, you will be adding a second thirteenth payment which should cut your loan term virtually in half. Because credit card companies are required to credit your account shortly after they receive your funds, making two payments each month will boost your prepayments and when you are fighting to pay down your debt as quickly as possible, you need every advantage you can get.


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