There are many Americans today literally drowning in debt and one of the reasons for this is the relative ease of credit in the form of readily available credit cards. This problem has become so large that even the USA as a whole is addicted to debt and the US as a nation is a debtor nation to many major countries. Thus bad debt should be reduced in your personal finances so that you can start thinking of more profitable ways to employ your monthly income.

This article will highlight three simple but effective strategies to help you reduce your household debt and hopefully put you in better shape to start using the extra money saved from interest payments to make more money for your household via investment.

Firstly, you can consider using a debit card and stop using your credit card. What is the difference you may ask? A debit card is good only for the amount of money that you have in your bank account and will prevent you from splurging on the big ticket item that you saw in the shop front the other day. It also will help you cultivate the habit of spending the money that you currently have and not exceed your means.

Another variation on this idea is to pay for purchases with cash as this will mentally prevent you from spending on credit and losing your rational ability to manage your finances. We all know that sometimes a credit card generates in us this urge to spend and especially when we are under stress, we end up spending more than we should. Using cash or a debit card would help to counter such influences.

Secondly, make it a habit to pay all your credit card bills on time at the end of the month. We all have the habit of procrastination and so the best policy is to pay all your credit card and other bills in full at the end of the month. Did you know that the credit card companies and the banks make lots of money from consumers who do not pay their credit card bills on time based from the interest payable?

Thirdly, we should take some time monthly to examine our credit card bills and then take a highlighter to consider wasteful expenditure and then take efforts to cut down such expenditure. Some usually suspects include a cell phone plan that could be renegotiated so as to save money monthly. Some membership fees can also be cancelled if you are not going to your gym or country club as frequently as you wanted to.

In conclusion, we all love to make more money, but if your monthly credit card bills and interest payments start eating into the amount of money that you make, you will not be able to enjoy the increased income that you are earning. Spend some time considering the above mentioned three simple things that you can do each month and you might start seeing more cash in your bank account that you can use for other things.

Copyright 2006 Joel Teo. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author's information with live links only.)