It's vital to have a plan to cut credit card debt. Some suggestions are:

1. Negotiate lower interest rates by calling your credit card companies. Lowering your interest rate by a few percentage points can help you emerge from debt more quickly and it could save you hundreds of dollars over the term of your loan.
    
2. Pay your bills on time. Many banks adjust interest rates on your credit cards by looking at your payment history not only with them but also with other creditors. That means that if you forget to pay any bill one month, your credit card rate could jump significantly which could be very costly. It is so imperative to pay your bills on time.
    
3. Eliminate your credit cards one at a time with the highest interest rate card first. List all of your credit cards, including the balance, the interest rate, and the minimum monthly payment according to your latest statement. Reorganize the list so that the card with the highest interest rate is at the top and the card with the lowest interest rate is at the bottom. Now add up the required minimum payments for all the cards. Each month you will pay the minimum balance on each credit card except the one with the highest interest rate pay the minimum balance plus the additional amount you have identified to reduce your credit card debt each month. Continue with this practice until the first credit card (highest interest rate) is paid off entirely. Then take the amount you were paying on the first credit card which is now paid off, plus the amount of the minimum balance on the second credit card, and apply the total to the second credit card each month until the balance is paid off. Continuing to pay the minimum balance on all the other credit cards. Keep going down the list of credit cards with this strategy until the debt is eliminated.
    
4. Watch the rewards offered by credit card companies, such as airline miles etc. Credit card issuers team up with airlines and retail stores to entice you to spend more. If you carry a balance from month to month, what you pay in interest will likely eat up any benefit from the reward card. Credit card rewards can be good for people who pay off balances in full every month.
    
5. Build up an emergency fund. While you are paying off credit card debt, you should also be building up six months of savings. Saving money seems to hinder your goal of paying off debt quickly. What happens if your water heater breaks and you have nothing saved? You will be tempted to pay with plastic. This is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.

There are websites that offer debt calculators and debt management tools, such as www.Bankrate.com  or www.Quicken.com. To calculate how much longer it will take you to pay off your outstanding balance if you only make minimum payments, go to Bankrate.com and click on credit cards. There is a simple way to figure out how much interest you will have to pay if you only make minimum payments. Take your balance and multiply it by your APR. Take that number and divide it by 12. This number is an estimate of how much you will pay in interest each month, also assuming you make no more purchases on that card.

To conclude, you need to take control now and eliminate credit card debt before it threatens your financial health. Especially when you are an artist, the short-term freedom that credit cards offer can be seductive. Spend now and pay later. Over the long term, accumulating too much debt, or failing to pay it off on time, can make it harder for you to buy a house or a car later.

Currently, Stacey L. Morin works for Wilshire Associates Inc. in their Private Equity Division as Assistant Controller and holds a Masters of Business Administration in Finance from California State University Northridge and Bachelors of Business Administration in Accounting from Eastern Michigan University. Ms. Morin is a Freelance Business Consultant Writer on the side.

By Stacey L. Morin, MBA-Finance, March 2008