How to Pay Down Debt for Newbies - The importance of interest rates

When I was younger, I would pay down whichever debt had the largest balance, and never really thought twice about what the interest rates were and never really checked.  All I thought was, I will pay this down gradually and tackle the biggest one first.  This makes sense to a certain degree.... But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

Interest rates! Interest rates! Interest rates!  Pay down the debt with the highest interest rates  first.  This is the money that is charged on top of the money loaned. 5%  15% 22%.... Tackle the debt with the biggest interest rates.  You want to pay what you borrowed, but you don't want to pay the extra fees.  Those extra fees come from the interest rates, so you don't want to carry a large balance on a high interest rate credit card.

 Most automobile loans have pretty low interest rates (around 3%), so it's ok not to pay off your car right away if you have other debt.  Credit cards have up to 22%.... a low credit card APR would be around12-15%.  You always want to pay down your credit cards first.  Make sure you know what interest rates your cards have and start with the largest. You can do the math on how much money goes to interest rates, and in some cases it makes sense to pay down large balances... However, if you don't want to put a lot of thought into paying off your bills... Rule of thumb: Pay down the high interest rates first.

This is just a starter post for this section... I plan to post more financial tips and tell you my story.  I've always been a saver, but living in the bay area and having family obligations, it gets a little tough.  My goal is to MAKE THE MOST OUT OF WHAT YOU HAVE.

til next time.