G8 leaders to stamp out terrorist fund

This aggressive strategy may work wonders with terrorist funding, but in our own lives we still have to pay.

09:00 23 June 2013

Leaders at the G8 summit have agreed to refuse ransom payments to terrorist groups to free hostages. The intent is to send a clear message that terrorism won’t be supported directly or indirectly by countries, and leaders are calling upon private entities to follow suit.

 

Unfortunately the same tactics don’t work with our credit card payments. The only way to stamp those out is to pay them off. Here are a few ways you can work towards paying off your credit cards. 

• Minimum payments—many times we just want to get by with paying the minimum required payments on our credit cards.

 

When budgets are tight to begin with, it’s difficult to find extra, but paying even small amounts above the minimum can make a difference and shorten the amount of time you’ll be paying on that bill.

 

All it takes is an extra £10 to make a really significant difference, but even if you have less than that feel free to include it with your minimum.

 

• Gifts—if you receive gifts that you don’t need or don’t like, consider taking them back and getting the funds instead. This is helpful for birthdays or other occasions and can give you some larger amounts to use for extra payments on your credit cards.

 

Usually the advice is to pay on the highest interest rate, but if the budget is tight time is of the essence. Pay off the smallest balance first so you’ll free up a minimum payment amount that can be used towards other credit cards. Monetary gifts are also an easy way to put larger payments on your credit cards.

 

• Balance transfers—if you don’t have extra, see if any of your credit cards have available balance transfer options. Sometimes if the fees are low, transferring to a card with a significantly better interest rate can make a huge difference in manageability.