Credit card debt and management are two terms that should go hand-in-hand. If you have credit card debt and don\'t manage it, the time will come when you will wish you had. It would be in your best interest to manager credit cards right from the very beginning, rather than incurring a lot of debt and then looking for a debt relief program.

If you have credit card debt, you can learn to manage the debt on your own with a little bit of effort and a plan. Your first step is to become familiar with your debt. You will need to make a list of all your accounts-how much is owed on each one and the amount of our monthly payment. The next step is to make a list of all your expenses and to evaluate them to figure out where you can make cuts and save money. You will also want to keep track of your daily expenses so that you can see where your money is going and see where you can cut in this area also. Most of us spend money we don\'t even realize we are spending.

Now it\'s time to start making payments. Take the account with the smallest balance and pay as much as you can towards the balance each month while paying the minimum payments on all of your other accounts until the first account is paid off. When the account is paid off, take the second lowest balance and repeat the process adding the amount that you paid towards the first account to the payment of the next account. You will repeat this process until you have all of your accounts paid off.

I know this all sounds very simple, but it will take time and discipline. The more you are able to take away from your discretionary spending and use towards your credit card payments, the sooner you will reach debt freedom. A self managed credit card repayment plan is not for everyone.

If you\'re in situation where you feel you are not able to manage the repayment of credit card debt on your own, credit counseling is available. And they do a good job of helping you write a budget, learn about personal finance and design a plan that will help you get your accounts repaid. Credit counseling can have you debt free in 5-7 years with little or no impact to your credit.