How to Tell If You're Headed For Credit Card Debt

I think I can safely speak for just about everyone on the planet when I say that being deep in credit card debt sucks. Whether you went on some crazy spending spree with your favorite Visa card, or had to resort to paying bills with your MasterCard to help make ends meet, ending up with large amounts of credit card debt and in need of credit repair services is no fun.

Luckily, there are pretty clear warning signs that can help keep you out of falling into this credit sinkhole. Here are a few major signs of impending credit card debt we’ve come across to help keep your cards in check.

You’re using your card to cover the bare necessities

What I mean here isn’t so much that you break out the AMEX card to pay your rent – although that’s certainly not a good idea either – but that you’re paying for all of your basic day-to-day items like food and gas with a credit card. If you can’t afford to pay for these things with cash in hand, it’s probably safe to say you’re headed for financial trouble.

You leave your monthly credit card statements unopened

Every month, you get a statement in the mail regarding your outstanding credit card bill and how much you have left to pay down. If you’re like I [used to be], you probably toss this into the junk mail pile without even bothering to open it. Assuming you don’t want to end up on the wrong side of credit card debt, you might wanna take a look at your monthly credit card statements, instead of pretending they don’t exist, or will just take care of themselves.

You charge expensive, but “affordable” items

How often do you come across some big ticket item that you just HAVE to have right then and there, but can’t quite afford at the moment as it’s just out of your price range, and you charge it to your credit card anyway with the promise of paying it off later? If the answer is more often than you’d care to admit, now might be a good time to put a stop to that.

You don’t have an emergency fund

This can be a major problem when you (inevitably) have some emergency pop up that requires a decent chunk of change to take care of, like car repair or an unexpected medical bill. If you don’t have funds set aside to help you take care of the problem, you could fall deep into debt before you even know what happened.

Your credit cards are all maxed out

If you’ve rung up your last credit card charge and are over your card’s limit, you’re already knee-deep in credit card debt. If this is the case, well, the good news is you won’t be making more charges on the card until you start to pay it down. Start working up a payment plan to get your card – and your spending habits – back on track, and try to make sure they stay that way this time.