Credit cards make it easy to fall into a pattern of paying minimum payments on your purchases, however this doesn’t really reduce your debt, as most of it is interest. Perhaps now your debt is more than you can handle or you have had some sort of set-back that is making it difficult to afford your monthly payments.

First of all do not wait for the creditor to call you contact them first showing a willingness to take care of your debt. If you have any cash on hand considering offering a settlement of less than the balance owed, many times this is a very attractive offer for the company so that they will be able to get some money for the account.

You can also contact the company to request a lower interest rate. Normally they are more willing to give a better rate to customers that have a good record of on time paying. However, many times they will also do this for customers that have something unexpected come up or even if they are persistent in asking so don’t give up if one person says no, keep going up the ladder.

Getting a consolidation loan for your debts and paying off the credit card is a good strategy because it normally results in a lower amount of interest and this payment is usually lower than the payments you are making now on your different debts. If this is something you choose to do be sure not to run up any additional debts even after paying off your older debts until the consolidation loan has been paid, otherwise you may end up with more of a debt that you began with.