Financial Challenges Support Group

This community is for people who are struggling to meet financial obligations of any kind. Financial challenges include everything from the day-to-day challenges of making ends meet to managing credit card debt to bankruptcy. Get support from others who are going through similar obstacles on the road back to financial stability.

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Paying off the Principal/Boyfriend is helping me..

Krissytin
Krissytin
I feel a bit distraught about it. My boyfriend has the career and is financle stable. He is letting me move in to his place to save $ in order to pay off my debt. I am working more hours, looking for another job, going to school to better my career and doing this while suffering through medical issues. He tells me it wont work if i dont help myself. He got into telling me that I need to pay my credit cards off by paying the principal...what is that?! what does that mean? If only paying the principal wouldnt the interest keep going up anyways? Will get anywhere just by doing that?
Desigol1979
Desigol1979
Yes, we have to put our needs first and take care of ourselves.

I was in a god-awful state financially between 2004 and 2007. Although Family Inheritance anaesthetised the pain for a while, I still had the spiritual malady and family enmeshment that comes about through underearning.

Now there are miracles in my life. You can have those miracles too.
Messenger2010
Messenger2010
The easiest interpretation of this would be to never carry a balance... so every month the card's principal is paid in full.

Another way, which I tried to figure out last night before posting here.

Let's say you have a CC with a $1500 balance on it. The amount that was actually used (principal) was $900... and you want to pay off the card in ten months. Just on the principal that would mean $90 a month.

The amount the CC company wants as a minimum is $25 a month. So no matter what you pay at least $90 a month. It will lower the principal and the interest... it will take more then ten months to pay... but it is a better way then just paying odd amounts every month...
billwfriend
billwfriend
paying principal means instead of just keeping up with the interest paying much as possible to get the balances to drop...hopefully to zero....principal is the amount that the interest is accrued to...in other words if I would be using card and owe 200 that is the principal...but then if I let the interest build by 24 then the new principal will be 224

so paying down the debt is what he means....paying more than the minimum is only way to do this....minimum allows interest to keep adding more to the account drawing it out over a longer period of time to pay off....if you want to pay off set it to pay much as you can to the accounts and do not use them any longer....
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