If You Have More Than $10K in Debt, Make These 5 Moves (2024)

FAQs

Is $10 K in credit card debt bad? ›

Having any credit card debt can be stressful, but $10,000 in credit card debt is a different level of stress. The average credit card interest rate is over 20%, so interest charges alone will take up a large chunk of your payments. On $10,000 in balances, you could end up paying over $2,000 per year in interest.

1% of the balance plus interest: It would take 29.5 years or 354 months to pay off $10,000 in credit card debt making only minimum payments. You would pay a total of $19,332.21 in interest over that period.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a government-sponsored program for credit card debt relief.

National Debt Relief is the best overall debt settlement company, according to our research. National Debt Relief's low-cost fee structure and referral service make it a top option for people struggling with debts. Our highest-rated debt settlement companies all charge similar fees, ranging from 15% to 25% of the debt.

The Bottom Line

National Debt Relief is one of the best companies when it comes to debt settlement—but debt settlement is risky, and it's costly even when it's successful. Debt settlement companies like NDR can and do provide help to people who need it.

If your total balance is more than 30% of the total credit limit, you may be in too much debt. Some experts consider it best to keep credit utilization between 1% and 10%, while anything between 11% and 30% is typically considered good.

To be eligible, your annual income must have fallen below $125,000 (for individuals) or $250,000 (for married couples or heads of households).

If you only make minimum payments, a $10,000 credit card balance will cost you $16,056.59 in interest and take 346 months to pay off. Minimum payments on a $10,000 balance would start at $267 and decrease as you paid down what you owe.

If you want to pay off debt more quickly, you'll need to make extra credit card payments and pay above the minimum. Let's say you had that same $10,000 credit card debt at 18% interest mentioned above, and you made a $350 payment every month until it was paid off. In that case, you'd be free of your debt in 38 months.

If you do it right, debt consolidation might slightly decrease your score temporarily. The drop will come from a hard inquiry that appears on your credit reports every time you apply for credit. But, according to Experian, the decrease is normally less than 5 points and your score should rebound within a few months.

Should I empty my savings to pay off credit card? ›

While money parked in savings can be used to pay credit card bills, it should only be a last resort if the bill would otherwise go unpaid. It's ideal to keep savings for emergencies or future goals.

The avalanche method has you focus first on repaying your highest-interest debt until it's completely gone. You then move on to the debt with the next-highest interest rate and so on. Paying more money toward your highest-interest debts may help you save money in interest payments in the long run.

For example, say you have a credit card account that charges 18% interest, and you have $10,000 in credit card debt. If the minimum payments are equal to interest plus 1% of the balance, it would take 342 months to pay off the debt by making minimum payments alone. That's 28.5 years.

The simplest way to make this calculation is to divide $10,000 by 12. This would mean you need to pay $833 per month to have contributed your goal amount to your debt pay-off plan. This number, though, doesn't factor in the interest on your debt.

What's considered too much debt is relative and varies by person based on the financial situation. There's no specific definition of “a lot of debt” — $10,000 might be a high amount of debt to one person, for example, but a very manageable debt for someone else.

Pay off your most expensive loan first.

Then, continue paying down debts with the next highest interest rates to save on your overall cost. This is sometimes referred to as the “avalanche method” of paying down debt.