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I have a credit card with 30% interest and a real estate loan with 11% interest. The amount of debt on my card is lower than the real estate loan.

I want to redeem the installments of the real estate loan, but I can't do it because the credit card debt takes all my money.

  • What can I do in this situation?
  • How can I get out of the debt-trap as quickly as possible?

I have a 4-room house and 2 cars, and 2 children who have to go to school, that's why there are a lot of fix expenses.

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2 Answers 2

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It can be difficult when all your disposable income is spoken for. Your options depend on how good your credit is and how flexible your expenses are. I don't have all the answers without more details (possibly not then). However, couple of points of advice:

  1. Paying off that credit card debt (and not adding any more to it) is your #1 priority. You should make minimum payments to every other debt until you have done that because the interest on it will kill you in the mean time. It is always optimal to pay the maximum to your highest interest debt and minimum to all other debts.

  2. 11% doesn't sound very good on your house loan. You may want to consider refinancing. That is, if you can get a lower rate. You may also want to get a longer term loan (if you have enough discipline to use the extra income to actually pay off your credit card and then the put it toward the house when the cards are paid off).

  3. Look at options to increase your income, at least temporarily. Second jobs and such. When your finances are more in order, you can back off.

The debt "trap" is behavioral. We humans tend to increase our spending until we can't any more. But the reason we can't spend any more is that we have increased our debt until we have no flexible income. Then we are stuck for a long time and have few options.

The only way out (long term) is to change our habits so that we don't increase spending each time we pay down a debt or get an increase to our income. Financial discipline is the only way to have financial security. Almost always the first step is to pay off credit cards and stop maintaining a balance (always pay off every card at the end of each month). Then start paying off other debts from highest interest rate to lowest.

This is a hard challenge and one most of us face at some point in our lives. Good luck!

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  • @farmsy I agree entirely, and blackcornail should cut expenditure and rebuild his credit if refinancing isnt available currently.
    – Andrew Day
    Apr 12, 2016 at 23:29
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It will take a bit of sacrifice.

First, I'd review spending. Between you and all your family, try to separate the 'needs' from the 'wants' and cut out 75% of the 'wants.'

Second, there's almost always part time work that can help raise extra money. Even if it's a small fraction of your current hourly pay, every bit you and your family can throw at that 30% debt will help get rid of it and help you get to the point when you can refinance the mortgage.

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