Missing a Payment is the worst thing to happen regarding your debt situation.

It happens to the best of us. Work keeps us busy, family matters come up, or you just might forget a payment.

26 percent of Americans, or more than 58 million adults, admit to not paying all of their bills on time. (Source: National Foundation for Credit Counseling, 2009 Financial Literacy Survey, April 2009)

But there are consequences for missing a credit card payment.

• Getting a late payment fee, is the most obvious one
• Ø Your APR being raised, even on other credit cards.
• If reported to Credit bureaus it will hurt your score
• Having a higher APR will lead to more money spent
• Lenders will not be pleased with your credit history
• Stress can build up because of the above affects
• The list goes on…

If there is anything I hate more than debt, it would have to be bank fees. Late fees range from $20-$39 depending on your contract. Penalty fees from credit cards will add up to about $20.5 billion in 2009, according to R. K. Hammer, a consultant to the credit card industry. (Source: New York Times, September 2009) Reading that makes me sick. $20.5 billion dollars in fees, let this sink in… Then vow to me that you will never miss another payment.

Having your APR raised makes for a crappy day. It’s always fun when the bank  charges you more interest, and makes more money off of you, all because you forgot to send in a payment. Great. A not so cool thing about this is that if a late payment gets reported, your other credit card APRs can be raised too.

Your credit score is a valuable asset to you, and your debt fighting army. Having your score lowered by missing a payment is like for fitting a major battle in this war on debt. Payment history makes up 35% of your credit score. Keep your score 35% higher than anyone else by not missing any payments.

Avoid Missing a Payment

Set all due dates to the same day. The first step is to make all your bills due dates work for you. Do you prefer to pay all of your bills at the beginning of the month such as the 5^th? Or is it easier to pay the bills at the end of the month? Whichever works for you, call your banks and ask them to change the due dates  for your bills. Set them up all on the same day. For example, arrange all your bills to be due on the 25^th or 30^th. Having three or more different due dates can be confusing. Simplifying the situation will prevent missed payments.

Set up automatic reminders. One of my favorite things in this technology overrun world is electronic reminders. I am a forgetful person, I’ll admit it. So by setting up automatic reminders, I do not even have to think about due dates of bills. Setting up reminders can be accomplished multiple ways. Your bank should offer email reminders, or E-statements.  If your banks do not, let your budgeting tool do the work for you. Mint.com allows users to set email and text message alerts for a variety of events, including due dates of bills and payments.

Set up automatic payments. Setting up automatic payments for each of your credit cards is the most efficient way to guarantee you never miss a payment. Do this by logging into your banks web access. Look for the free bill pay section. From there you should be able to schedule payments for each month. If you are not sure if there will be the correct amount of money in your account, it will remind you before the payment is made, and you can adjust accordingly.

Know your contract. By knowing the grace period you can prevent a late fee being tacked on. By knowing what your APR can raise to, it will motivate you to never miss a payment.

So you missed a payment. First off, call your bank and verify a late fee was not applied. You can check your online statement, but talking to a normal human being is good as well. Also, while you have the customer service rep on the phone, confirm that the late payment will not affect your credit score. If it has only been a few days it might have not been reported to the credit bureaus. Ask the kind individual if your APR will be affected.

A major factor preventing millions of people from getting out of debt is not knowing where to start. I will admit that I am lazy and overwhelming projects rarely get done without proper motivation. I bet everyone can agree with that. Even I become overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin, so I don’t make progress. I was so sick of being in debt, so I created this site as motivation for myself.

Getting out of debt will require starting work, or it will never happen. Sending monthly payments for more than you actually spent will become routine and you will live in the clutches of a billion dollar corporation. Saving yourself and changing your life might seem overwhelming or too hard. I can assure you it’s not, and it actually requires less work than you think and mainly demands discipline. Disipline might be hard to come by because we got ourselves into this situation by lacking the restraint to spend money.

By taking small  coordinated steps, you can be on your way to being debt free in under an hour of your time. If you have time to watch Greys Anatomy tonight you can start getting out of debt in the same time.

• Know how much you owe.
• Decide on a method of paying off debt.
• Stop spending with credit cards.

If you do not know how much you owe, this is probably the reason you sleep at night. Well get ready to lose some sleep. Log into your bank websites, open all your bills, or call your banks if you are having a hard time calculating how much you owe. They should make it pretty clear. Once you have all the info, compile it all into one list like such.

Decide on a method of paying off debt. Sure you could just throw money at different bills but it is not very strategic. Would you prefer paying off the highest APR card first? Would it feel good to get the lowest balance card off your chest? Just like construction workers need blueprints before they build anything, you need a plan to pay off your debt. Adam Baker of Man Vs Debt likes this approach. In my case, my highest APR credit card happened to be my lowest balance, so I crushed that first and foremost. I am currently dominating my last card with all the funds I have available.

Lastly, stop spending with your credit cards. Cancel subscriptions, ditch your card, reach for cash/debit when you spend. Using cash will actually save you money in two ways. Statistically you will spend 12-18% less when using cash, and you will not be paying the interest as you would when using a credit card.

Why does it seem like debt can never be relieved? Why is it that we can not work hard enough, earn more money, spend less and pay off our debt?

If this is your mind set, let me say, “You have come to the right place.”  My Debt Regret is a community of others in the same position as me and you, in debt and regretting it. But the objective of this site is to help relieve the stress, regret, and burden of debt through my tips, advice, and tactics.

All you have to do is read, apply what you learn and strive to change the way you approach your money situation.

No one has ever rid themselves of debt by continuing to max out their cards while making the minimum payment each month. It is just common sense.

These are a few reasons people stay in debt.

• They chose to continue to spend while carrying a balance on a Credit Card
• Not paying off the full balance each month “Approximately 50% of card holders do not pay the full balance each month, according to Experian-Gallup Personal Credit Index survey.”
• Making only minimum monthly payments on maxed out Credit Cards
• Spending more than they make (Big Reason) “40% of US families spend more than they earn according to www.federalreserve.gov”
• No plan has been constructed to get out of debt

How can you do anything wit out a plan? So why are people complaining about being in debt and wishing they were debt free when they have no plan?

Mindlessly sending in payments to credit card companies and loan offices is the number one way to stay in debt.

Creating a plan with details such as Total Amounts Owed, minimum payments, APRs, and how much more you could be paying towards your debt is a great start.

Welcome to WWW.MyDebtRegret.com where the financial advice is free, but the work is up to you!