Paying the Minimum on Your Credit Card Is a Trap. Here's the Way Out.
Credit card companies are not your friends. The minimum payment system was designed by people who make money every single month you stay in debt. It is engineered to keep you paying for as long as possible while feeling like you're making progress. You're not making progress. You're running on a treadmill. The maths they don't show you If you have $3,000 on a credit card at 28% APR and you pay the minimum every month, it will take you over 10 years to pay it off. You will pay more in interest than you originally borrowed. Ten years of minimum payments on a $3,000 debt. That's not a debt problem. That's a system problem. And you can break the system. The debt snowball — why it works when other methods don't There are two well-known debt payoff methods. The Avalanche pays off your highest interest debt first — mathematically optimal. The Snowball pays off your smallest balance first — psychologically optimal. Studies consistently show the Snowball gets peopl...