When resolving to get out of debt, good intentions are an important, but not sufficiently effective first step. What you need is a plan and the initiative to follow through with this plan. You have to break away from your old habits that got you into debt and you have to lay down your new lifestyle securely in the place of the old habits to turn your finacial life around.
As I am sure you have realized, having debt is an expensive situation to be in; each month that you have debt, you accumulate more debt through interest. If your credit card rate is 20 percent, each time you buy something on that credit card and do not pay off the amount of the item right away, you are actually paying 20 percent more than the price of the item. For example, charging a $200 jacket without paying the full cost on your next credit card bill means you just paid $240 for a $200 jacket. If you cannot afford to pay more than the minimum payment for the item that month, then you probably cannot afford to buy the item in the first place.
This is an important point to keep in mind when you are tempted to charge purchases because of a deal that is too good to pass by. Any financial benefit that a sale or clearance may have is going to be canceled out by interest payments on your credit card if you cannot afford to pay off the entire amount of you purchase immediately. What often happens is a purchase that started as a good deal, such as buy one DVD get one half off, was a $60 purchase for $80 worth of merchandise. When you do not pay off the $60 on your credit card with a 25 percent interest rate, though, after one month those two DVDs just cost you $75, on ly $5 under the listed price. If you go another month without paying them off, you have now accumulated $93,75 woth of debt for $80 woth of DVDs.
When you are making your plan and finding the motivation ot follow through with your plan to get out of debt, you absolutely have to recognize the cost of getting yourself further into debt or putting off paying off your debt. Obviously, you have limits to your finances and monetary abilities, but in order to prevent paying two, three, or four times as much as your original purchases were worth, you need to pay off as much of your debt as quickly as you can.
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