There are basic steps to anyone wishing to eliminate credit card debt. The first step is a reality check. This consists of finding out exactly what you owe and to whom. Yes, you may have an idea that you have lots of debt, but you need to keep a list of who your creditors are, what is owed to them, and what interest rates they are charging you. This will be your guide to efficiently getting rid of that debt. So…get a pad and pencil and start listing each of your creditors. A creditor, by the way, is anyone to whom money is due. For purposes of debt reduction, a creditor is a business to whom you owe unsecured debt. Unsecured debt is debt such as on your credit cards. Credit card companies in the past looked at your credit history and deemed you capable of repaying debt to a certain limit. On that basis, they extended credit to you with no collateral.
Secured debt is different from credit card debt. With secured debt, you put up something of value in exchange for the money being loaned to you. Why bring this up? Because you need to be aware that if you default on a secured loan (i.e., cannot pay it back) you stand the risk of the creditor taking possession of the item you put up for the loan. This could be your car, some other property, or even your house. For this reason, it is extremely dangerous to take a loan associated with your home and use that loan to pay down credit card debt.
If for whatever reason you are not able to pay back the secured loan, you could loose your house. The better way to eliminate that credit card debt is to dig you heels in, cut expenses, and start the process of paying down that debt. So, back to the list of creditors. Make a list of creditors and for each one, list the amount owed and the interest rate they are charging you. In the case of credit cards, also list the amount of credit they have extended and how much room remains on each credit card.
With you list in hand, you can start the process of reducing debt the easy way - by looking for cards that have both a lower interest rate plus some room for additional charges. If you have any such cards, you can call those credit card companies and ask to transfer some debt from your higher interest rate cards to the lower interest rate cards. If you are able to do this, it will give you an immediate saving.
What to do with this saving? Next month, add the amount to your overall credit payments. Note how paying down credit card debt accelerates. Take the example of $1000 owed to a credit card company at an interest rate of 20%. That means that you will be paying about $200 per year just on interest and you will still owe the credit card company $1000. (The actual amount is a bit worse than this because of how the interest payments are calculated, but assume $200 per year just for discussion.) Now lets look at what happens when you pay down that $1000 debt. You are now saving $200/12 = $16.67 per month. Each $1000 paid off results in an additional $16.67 in you pocket each month. Now imagine if the amount is $10,000. Now you are starting to see significant money. At $10,000 paid off you have $166.67 per month extra (hopefully that you will use to increase you next payment).
Using this example, it is easy to see how the process of elimination of credit card debt accelerates over time. The more you pay down, the faster the debt disappears. The only requirement is for you to stay disciplined and committed to the process.