If You Have More Than $10K in Debt, Make These 5 Moves (2024)

FAQs

How to pay off $10k in debt fast? ›

1% of the balance plus interest: It would take 29.5 years or 354 months to pay off $10,000 in credit card debt making only minimum payments. You would pay a total of $19,332.21 in interest over that period.

You make one payment 15 days before your statement is due and another payment three days before the due date. By doing this, you can lower your overall credit utilization ratio, which can raise your credit score. Keeping a good credit score is important if you want to apply for new credit cards.

If you can afford to pay off your debt during the promotional APR period, a balance transfer card may be your best bet. For example, with $5,000 of debt, a six-month intro APR balance transfer card would allow you to pay off your debt interest-free with $833.33/month payments.

Having any credit card debt can be stressful, but $10,000 in credit card debt is a different level of stress. The average credit card interest rate is over 20%, so interest charges alone will take up a large chunk of your payments. On $10,000 in balances, you could end up paying over $2,000 per year in interest.

Debt reduction strategies like debt consolidation, debt settlement and credit card balance transfers don't actually help you get out of debt. Making a budget, increasing your income, and lowering your expenses are some ways you can get out of debt faster.

It will take 43 months to pay off $25,000 with payments of $800 per month, assuming the average credit card APR of around 18%. The time it takes to repay a balance depends on how often you make payments, how big your payments are and what the interest rate charged by the lender is.

Seek Credit Counseling

A counselor might suggest you enroll in a debt management program. They would work with creditors to reduce your interest rates and pay off credit card and other debts in three to five years. It's one thing to get out of debt.

You can try it for yourself using the credit card payoff calculator below. So say you have a $2,000 balance on a card with no annual fee and an APR of 20%. If you can pay $100 a month, it might take you 25 months to pay off the debt. If the card has the same APR but an annual fee of $100, it might take 29 months.

The 80/20 rule says that you should first set aside 20% of your net income for saving and paying down debt. Then split up the additional 80% between needs and wants. When using the 80/20 rule, calculate the amounts based on your net income - everything leftover after you pay taxes.

What is the golden rule of debt? ›

In the golden rule, a budget deficit and an increase in public debt is allowed if and only if the public debt is used to finance public investment.

Key takeaways

Debt-to-income ratio is your monthly debt obligations compared to your gross monthly income (before taxes), expressed as a percentage. A good debt-to-income ratio is less than or equal to 36%. Any debt-to-income ratio above 43% is considered to be too much debt.

It's a good idea to pay off your credit card balance in full whenever you're able. Carrying a monthly credit card balance can cost you in interest and increase your credit utilization rate, which is one factor used to calculate your credit scores.

To pay off $15,000 in credit card debt within 36 months, you will need to pay $543 per month, assuming an APR of 18%. You would incur $4,558 in interest charges during that time, but you could avoid much of this extra cost and pay off your debt faster by using a 0% APR balance transfer credit card.

The "snowball method," simply put, means paying off the smallest of all your loans as quickly as possible. Once that debt is paid, you take the money you were putting toward that payment and roll it onto the next-smallest debt owed. Ideally, this process would continue until all accounts are paid off.