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The best way to pay off credit card debt

How To Pay off Credit Card Debt: From the Snowball to the Avalanche Method

February 14, 2024February 13, 2024 Piggy 7 Comments

The Harvard Business Review has published a story on “the best strategy for paying off credit card debt.” The research, originally published in the Journal of Consumer Research by Keri L. Kettle et. al. benefits the millions of Americans who are literally $1.13 trillion in collective credit card debt according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Those trapped in the cycle of debt could truly benefit from a solution, so it’s worthwhile research.

The researchers (hereafter Kettle & Co.) tested a couple different methods for credit card debt reduction:

Dispersing payments equally across multiple credit cards each month.
Concentrating as high a payment as possible on one account at a time.

Their results were definitive and monumental! Truly a groundbreaking study! At last we know the one true way and light of how to pay off credit card debt!

I jest, of course. Because—say it with me now!—personal finance is personal. If there were one singular, perfect solution to credit card debt, everyone would use it and it wouldn’t be the question that launched a thousand personal finance influencers.

Today I want to break down a few of the different methods that work for paying down credit card debt. I’ll cover Kettle & Co.’s findings, some conventional wisdom from those who have survived debt, and one of the most hated, obnoxious, and ethically questionable men in personal finance media.

For verily, I say unto thee: Even a broken clock is right twice each day.
-The Book of the Bitches, Chapter III, verses 5-6

How to Build Good Credit Without Going Into Debt

May 17, 2023May 17, 2023 Piggy 4 Comments

Adult human beings need credit—good credit—to do lots of important adult things such as renting apartments and buying cars. We’ve been over this! But conventional wisdom says that the best way—nay, the only way—to build good credit is by accumulating debt.

That assumption about building credit through getting in debt feels backwards to me. For after all, the entire purpose of a credit score is to show that you’re worthy of loans. So you have to owe money so that you can then… owe money? And having debt, whether it be in the form of a balance on a credit card or just Ye Olde Student Loane, can lead you down a fucking terrifying cycle of overspending and interest that can eventually damage your credit, rather than helping it.

So let’s toss out the conventional wisdom. There’s got to be a better way! And there is. For it’s entirely possible to steadily build good credit without going into a day of debt.

How to Instantly Increase Your Credit Score… for FREE

March 21, 2023March 21, 2023 Piggy 16 Comments

While we were in the mystical city of Cincinnati recently, we did a live Drunk AMA on YouTube! It was great. We slow-flossed to a church hymn and dispelled the rumor that Ducky is, in fact, a vampire.

One of the questions we received was about Experian Boost. It’s just one of many services that offer to raise your credit score… for a fee. Even in our chaotic drunken state, we were lucid enough to unequivocally recommend that most of you shouldn’t bother with these paid services. There’s an easier, faster, and free way to raise your credit score!

Since not everyone wants to suffer through a 97-minute YouTube video of our collective vocal fry, I am now here to share the wisdom of how to instantly raise your credit score for free. Cast aside those paid services that promise you a better credit score! This is all you need to know.

Season 4, Episode 3: “My credit card debt is slowly crushing me. Is there any escape from this horrible cycle?”

November 29, 2022October 8, 2023 Piggy 2 Comments

If thinking about credit card debt puts a terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach, we get it. We all live in a world where the cost of living keeps climbing while minimum wage remains frozen in carbonite. Everybody’s out there trying to find ways to make up the impossible difference. Unsurprisingly, consumer debt is at an all-time high. And a lot of people struggle silently as their money struggles mount.

The good news? Well, there’s not much, but there is this: you are not alone. So many people experience the same confusion, frustration, dread, and shame that you do. Nobody plans to enter a cycle of insurmountable credit card debt. Shit happens, and it happens to all of us.

More good news? You aren’t doomed to stay in credit card debt forever. There’s a path to climb out of the chasm of despair that is consumer debt. Now, this path is no escalator. Depending on how bad your situation is, it’s a steep staircase at best (at worst, bring your crampons). But as two people who climbed that difficult path ourselves, we have a lot of advice and encouragement to give.

If you’re in credit card debt and you don’t want to be, listen to today’s episode. And if you’re good, share this article with a friend who might be struggling. It’s a friendly and compassionate introduction to the basics of getting out of credit card debt.

Credit Card Companies HATE Her! Stay Out of Credit Card Debt With This One Weird Trick

May 17, 2022May 17, 2022 Piggy 30 Comments

Kitty was once at an event where a credit card company was hawking their new cash rewards credit card. The credit card rep excitedly told her about all the cash back rewards she could earn by using the card, and how the interest wasn’t even “that bad!”

But mama didn’t raise no fool. Instead of falling head over heels for low interest, Kitty asked, “But what if someone pays off the credit card debt in full and on time? Will they still get the rewards?”

“Ah,” the credit card rep sighed, “we call those people deadbeats.”

That’s right: deadbeats. Credit card companies fucking hate people like Kitty and I. And that’s exactly how we like it!

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt

September 21, 2021July 31, 2023 Piggy Leave a comment

You’ve passed the trials. You’ve fought hard and won your place among the champions. At long last, it is time to be inducted into the Secret Society. Which secret society, you ask? It’s a secret.

As you take your place among the robed and hooded figures in this subterranean chamber, you know not what to expect. They are lit only by the flames of an ancient fire.

One by one, the hooded figures raise their arms to the stalactites above and intone:

Let us pay off debt, brothers and sisters!

Elmo amid the flames, presumably chanting "pay off debt."

Darling readers, debt fucking happens. Having debt doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, nor that you’re lazy or stupid. But it is something you’ll have to work hard to get past. So here is our collected advice on the subject of how to pay off debt.

Go forth and conquer, for you are soon to be debt-free!

Ask the Bitches: What’s the Difference Between Credit Checks and Credit Monitoring?

April 6, 2021April 15, 2022 Piggy 5 Comments

The world of personal finance is full of terms designed to confuse and waylay the innocent. Yet you are a beautiful and mysterious adventurer on the exciting journey of life! You do not have time to parse the different meanings of seemingly synonymous financial terms like “credit checks” and “credit monitoring.”

Fortunately, we’re a coupla’ nerds with nothing better to do.

Recently, an anonymous follower (we’ll call them “Pudding Cup” because I assume that, like pudding, they are both sweet and smooth) asked:

Dear Piggy and Kitty, I have a question. I just got an email from the auditing office of my state saying that the unemployment filing host “Accellion” was hacked and they don’t think anything happened, but are offering a free year of credit monitoring. I have no idea what that would do or how I would use it to make sure nothing bad happened? Also doesn’t monitoring your credit (somehow?) make it worse? Would this be helpful or not really?

In short, Pudding Cup has mixed up two distinctly different concepts to do with credit: credit monitoring and credit checks. I’ll detangle the two below.

Dafuq Is a Down Payment? And Why Do You Need One to Buy Stuff?

January 12, 2021February 9, 2021 Piggy 2 Comments

“What is a down payment?” In an ideal world, no one would need to ask themselves this question because no one would need one! Expensive things like cars and houses and college educations would be a lot more affordable. Enough so that we could pay for them with the money that we already have. And we’d all have mountains of it.

But unless you have a Scrooge McDuckian money vault at your disposal, buying a car or house or bachelor’s degree in cash is probably impossible. Down payments are necessary because of how our world works. Today we’re going to teach you what they are, when you need them, and how to use them to your advantage.

A Hand-holding Guide To Getting Your First Credit Card

February 17, 2020March 21, 2023 Piggy 6 Comments

I got my first credit card at age eighteen. I was a high school senior. I’d just been accepted into college, and the world was my goddamn oyster (but slightly less like salty snot). The year was 2005… and getting that shiny little piece of plastic was just about as easy as putting out my hand and asking for it.

Times have changed. We now live in a post-2008 Recession world, and getting your first credit card has become markedly harder. This is probably why we constantly receive questions from eighteen-year-olds like “I’ve submitted nine applications and no one will give me a credit card. What do???”

The Ramseyan debt purists will say “Do without it, you fool!” But we believe a credit card can be an extremely useful weapon in your financial arsenal. Just look at what happened when Kitty and her boyfriend tried to rent an apartment together and couldn’t because he had no credit!

Let’s End This Damaging Misconception About Credit Cards

April 2, 2018January 3, 2024 Piggy 17 Comments

I don’t know who started the rumor that carrying a balance on credit cards is good for your credit score, but I hope they step on a lego in bare feet every day for the rest of their lives.

You shut your pie hole, Poppins. This is serious.

Of all the damaging misconceptions about personal finance we’ve had to correct over the course of running Bitches Get Riches, this is by far my least favorite. And it keeps popping up again and again in questions from our followers! Why? How? Who is teaching all of our darling kangaroo babies such a terrible way of handling their credit cards?

Until I can find the culprit and give them their just desserts (hot oil? The rack?), I have made it my mission to set the record straight.