As most of us know the average American carries $10,000 in credit card debt. The rules have changed from a few years ago when credit card companies could set your minimum balance so low you would never pay off your card. With the new rules consumers are on a path to pay off their card but not anytime soon. Paying the minimum payment means you will stay in debt for a VERY long time. How long is very long? Take a look at the these numbers.

Let’s assume the credit card debt in question is $10,000 with an annual percentage rate of 16% (which is the national average). Now lets assume that you set off to make the minimum payment until the debt is eliminated. If the credit card company has your minimum payments at 2.5% it will take you 25 years to pay off the debt. During that time you would have paid more than $10k in interest to the credit card company.

Some companies are moving the minimum payment up to 5%. If that were the case it would still take 10 years to pay off the debt. What if you only had $2,000 in credit card debt… that would still take you 13+ years to pay off.

There is only one way to help yourself in this situation. Pay more than the minimum.

Here is a great free calculator from bankrate.com that shows you how long it will take to pay off a credit card balance. Credit Card Calculator