If you are having trouble determining if you even have a chance of buying yourself out of your credit card debt, I suggest you try the Credit Card Debt Calculator. You can see it and use it by CLICKING HERE.
For example, I went to this calculator, stated a credit card balance of $10,000.00, at 18% interest and a monthly payment of $175.00 per month. The Calculator showed that it would take 131 months (over 10 years) to pay off this credit card balance. And, this assumes that nothing more is ever charged to this account. Further, it showed, in order to pay the card off over this time, that it would take $22,872.40 and that the interest paid on this original $10,000.00 debt would be a whopping $12,872.40. (It begs the question that if you do not have the $10,000.00 to pay off this debt, where or how are you going to come up with the additional $12,872.40).
Pay an extra $25.00 a month and it has a pretty substantial impact, but it will still takes 94 months (over 7 years) to pay off the original $10,000.00, and it would still cost you an additional $8,622.36 in interest.
We use to call this “loan sharking”. No it is legal, only now the big banks are in charge of doing it. Do not think, however, that you are not the victim. It is just legal now to victimize you.
All of this supposes as well that you are never late on a payment or that your interest rate does not increase over this 94 to 131 month period. It also supposes that nothing go wrong, ever, during this time. We all know that is very unlikely.
Bankruptcy is an option for precisely this reason. I would be happy to meet with you about these financial issues.