Maryland Cooperative Extension Service
Family and Consumer Sciences
Maryland Cooperative Extension Service
The Consumer's Almanac
Consumer Credit Education Foundation
Washington, DC
Before making the decision to add more debt, you need to make sure that you:
$
Allocate sufficient money for your essentials.$
Borrow only for items you need and can afford.$
Borrow only if you're spending less each month than you take home.
1. Start with your monthly take-home pay.
This is the amount you have left after taxes and other deductions have been made.
2. Subtract the amount you need for necessities and fixed expenses.
This includes savings, your mortgage or rent payment, utilities, food, transportation, child care, medial care, clothing, and recreation. Include payments made on a quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis, such as insurance and taxes.
3. Subtract monthly payments for existing loans and credit cards.
4. The balance is the amount you can safely apply to debt repayment.
Avoid thinking you can spend all this amount, since emergencies do occur, and you may not wish to use your regular savings account to cover small, unexpected expenses.
Monthly Take Home $ __________
Fixed Expenses -$__________
Loans/Credit Cards -$__________
_______________________________________________
Amount Available For
Additional Debt $ _________
HOW TO MANAGE CREDIT CARD USE
May people find themselves with credit problems because they don't keep track of purchases they make with their credit cards. A simple method of keep track of monthly credit card charges it to:
1. Determine the total amount you can responsibly charge on all your credit card accounts during that month.
2. Keep track of your credit spending in the same way you maintain a running balance of your checking account.
3. Subtract each amount charged from the monthly charge limit you set.
4. Stop using your credit cards if you draw this balance down to zero.
