If you only made the minimum payments on a $5,000 balance, it would take more than 15 years to pay it off, while incurring over $5,400 in interest charges (assuming an interest rate of about 16%).
“Getting out of debt is often more psychological than mathematical,” Rossman said. “A big part of the solution is to organize your budget so that you have more money coming in than going out each month.”
Altogether, 70% of adults have personal debt, including 39% with credit card debt, 25% with a mortgage, 23% with a car loan and 16% with student loan debt, according to CreditCards.com.
