For many consumers today, owning a credit card is not a luxury but a necessity. Unfortunately, for a lot of credit cardholders, owning a credit card also means being stuck in bad debt. Do you find yourself struggling with your credit card debt too? If you are, consider the following advice on how you can manage your debts more effectively:

Check the status of your debts.

Are you are of how much debt you have in each of your credit card accounts? Are you sure that all charges in your bill are correct? Wouldn’t it be a waste of time, energy and money to be paying down charges that were not yours in the first place? When was the last time you checked your credit card account?

Take note that you can dispute unauthorized charges. By checking for errors, you might be able to reduce your debts instantly before beginning to work on repayment.

Don’t panic!

Do you think your debts are too big to handle? When faced with a difficult situation, the worst thing to do is let your emotions take over. If you do, you may not be able to think straight and you can be easily victimized by scammers who take advantage of people in crisis.

Scammers might promise to give you instant debt relief and in the hopes to make the situation better, you might be convinced to grab the offer. In the end, you may find yourself in an even worse situation than you first started all because you sought the wrong kind of help. So keep your composure and think carefully before taking any action. Remember that no matter how insurmountable your debt problem seems to be, you will find a viable solution.

Create a strategy.

You need to have a definite strategy on how you will be able to cut down your credit card debt. Although you can’t pay all your balances at once, you will be able to eliminate your debts one step at a time.

For example, check which of your credit cards charge the highest rate of interest. You can choose to pay off your full balance on this account instead of submitting minimum payment on all your credit cards. By zeroing in your balance with your highest rate credit card, you instantly eliminate a portion of your debts. You can also pay down your lowest balance in full.

You may consider getting a zero interest balance transfer credit card, too. Having a definite plan is the way to debt freedom.

Negotiate payments.

Call up your bank or credit card issuer and try to negotiate for easier repayment terms. Explain your situation to the supervisor or manager and ask for a lower rate or if some your fees can be waived. You might think that your issuer will not listen but it is truly worth the effort to try.

Watch out for fraudulent debt-settlement offers.

Avoid agencies that offer debt settlement services as some of them may charge you with unreasonable fees and interest rate. You might be tempted to take a loan offer to pay all your credit card debt at once only to discover that your loan consolidation lender will rip you off with excessive rates and fees.