Well, what you may not realize is that advise is now more relevant than ever. The credit card reforms that went into play this year make it possible for those of us with credit card debt to save a lot of money and hopefully get out of debt faster – if we abide by the rule and pay more than the minimum. In fact – the Center for Responsible Lending says that the reform will save about $2 for every dollar you pay above the minimum. Pretty sweet, huh?Here are the Center for Responsible Lending’s four tips for cardholders:

1. Pay above the minimum amount due! Paying more than the minimum can save you as much as $2 for every extra $1 you pay. For example, before the CARD Act, paying $100 extra could save you $164 in interest charges, but now that same payment amount can save you $224.

2. Continue to watch out for hair-trigger penalty rates. Issuers can still raise your interest rates on new balances for the slightest reason. It is particularly important to pay above the minimum if you get hit with a penalty rate. Doubling your payment could cut your interest charges over the following four years by more than half.

3. Don’t opt in to over-the-limit coverage. Over-the-limit coverage is a bad deal because it means that if you go above your limit, the credit card company will extend you additional credit at an exorbitant cost automatically — as much as 4,215% APR (annual percentage rate) – instead of rejecting your card. A better option would be to call your issuer to see if you can have your limit raised, or apply for additional credit elsewhere.

4. Avoid arbitration clauses in credit card contracts. Protect your rights. There are now more card options without arbitration clauses and you should ask your credit card company for one. Forced arbitration requires the borrower to resolve any dispute with an arbitrator, not in court. Research shows decisions in arbitration favor card issuers, rarely the wronged borrower.

I hadn’t carried a balance on the cards for probably over a year now, but didn’t want to cancel them in case the reduction in available credit would impact my overall credit score and therefore my rates on existing balances.

But with the new credit card rules coming into effect and the current state of lending – I feel that now is as good a time as ever to cancel my zero balances. I’m making good progress in paying down debt and if there are any repercussions to canceling cards – I’m betting that it will help in the long run if I just start making adjustments now.

One thing I do know so far is that I’m thrilled to no longer have any ties to Bank of America.

Also, below is the actual video from Jackie Ramos, in case you want to hear her whole story:

From time to time, you need motivation to keep going and keep sacrificing quick hits of happiness to really pay down debt. This movie motivates in two ways:

1. It scares the hell out of you. (i.e. 57 year old woman talking about how she’s considered suicide because she’s in so much emotional pain as a cause of her debt burden)
2. It shines a light on what you, as a consumer, are really up against.

As you can imagine, the credit card industry is a well-oiled machine and they know where to pull and push in order to get the maximum from each and every card holder. It’s really amazing to think of how calculating the system they have created has become.

As I watched, I couldn’t help but think about how the banking and credit card industry advertise their products – both in commercials and disgustingly blatant in-show placements. The goal of advertising and branding is to give a brand a personality – something that makes you feel a certain way and help you develop an emotional connection to them or their product(s).

Credit cards and banks do this very well. Their ads and slogans (Bank of America = Bank of Opportunity) make you believe that they’re friendly companies that just want to help you enjoy your life on your terms. They make dreams come true and are in your corner through good times and bad.

After watching Maxed Out, it’s clear that nothing could be further from the truth.

Another month down and I’m pleased that the numbers show that I’m making some progress chipping away at my debt. The credit card pay down combined with a decent increase my emergency fund due to the renewed focus have my net worth being a thousand dollars better than last month. Still a negative number – but I’m starting to see light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully am picking up some momentum. At least that’s what it feels like – which is good.

My tax refund should be in my account by the end of this month. If all goes to plan, this should materialize as a reached (initial) goal of $1000 in my emergency fund by June and the milestone of getting my credit card debt below $20K. Not bad for the 2nd month of the year.

I know there’s still a long road ahead, but I am really starting to feel good about my finances and my debt plan. Some scary things still loom on the horizon – job insecurity, economic uncertainty, etc. – but I’m trying to plan for the unexpected now so that it doesn’t set me back if anything were to happen. Something I should have done right from the start of my career – or sooner. Oh well, lesson for my future kids – if they’ll listen.

Last note, I mentioned the economic uncertainty as being something that I need to watch out for in the future. However, I have to say that I am really proud of myself for buckling down and improving my finances little by little during the current economy. Each time I read a story about consumers buying less and saving more, I feel like I’m reading a story about me. It’s nice to be part of a statistic that I can be proud of – instead of the usual statistics associated with my type of finances.

Anyway…onward.

According to this article on CNN.com:

Buying gasoline with a credit card could be hurting your local independent gas station owner – and you may have to pay for it.

That’s because credit cards charge merchant fees in the form of a percentage of sales – and those fees eat into the fixed per-gallon sum that gas retailers tack onto pump prices.

Some stations raise prices in order to keep profit steady.

It makes sense. All I know is that I’m glad that I now have shredded all my credit cards and have taking public transportation to work for a full year now. The timing seems to have worked out in my favor.

Among other things, the regulation asks for:

• Bills to be mailed out 21-days prior to due date
• An end to the practice of applying payments only to balances with the lowest interest rates (leaving the higher rate debt in full)

But what I found to be one of the best excerpts from the story was:

Just ask Victoria Ramirez. The San Jose elementary school teacher once had as much as $45,000 in debt on six different cards.

Now she and her husband have whittled that down to a balance of about $10,000 on a single card.

Ramirez, 37, said card issuers make it all too easy to get into trouble.

“They loan you a big amount of money that you can’t take care of,” she said.

This isn’t so different from what’s happening in the housing market. One reason so many people are in danger of losing their homes right now is because banks handed out high-risk loans to folks who had no business getting deep into debt.

To be sure, many such loan recipients deserve a share of the blame for being so reckless with their personal finances. But they wouldn’t have gotten into trouble without the willing complicity of lenders, which encouraged virtually all home buyers to take the plunge, regardless of their ability to repay loans.

While I agree with that – I’m most impressed by her debt reduction. They don’t say how she did it or what the time frame was, but debt reduction is debt reduction and I can’t wait to join the club.

Also, I just want to call out that I don’t think that the debt crisis is the credit companies fault. And I don’t think that they are to blame for my situation either. I think we should all be responsible. But drug dealers that don’t do drugs still go to jail, know what I mean? Sure people have to be responsible for their actions, but they should not be enabled to ruin their lives.

Well, here we are, 2008. I’ve updated my monthly budget to reflect an all out attack at my credit card debt. Those of you that have been reading my posts, know that I have decided to focus most all of my money at knocking off my debts one-by-one. I have knocked off one credit card so far (7 credit card in total – 5 to go) and am now focusing as much money as can be spared toward the card with the lowest balance.

I’m using the debt snowball method now. So, I’ve adapted my 2008 Budget/Spending Outlook to reflect increased payments due to paid-off loans as I go. This (hopefully) will help me not only keep on track, but see this plan in a realistic light. I will not be debt free in 2009 – barring any new-found luck in the lottery (and yes I know the lottery odds and how it’s bad and so on…), but I will be closer. And as that’s a very good thing.

My decrease in savings is due to a car repair and a debt payment. I’m hoping to use some of my tax refund to replenish my emergency fund to $1000. Whatever is left I will put towards my large debt payment.

‘‘The truth is, our middle-class families are not going to be secure so long as they can’t get out of debt,’’ Obama said Monday, sharpening the populist rhetoric of his presidential campaign. ‘‘If we’re serious about stopping Americans from falling deeper in debt, we’ve got to crack down on predatory credit card companies that are pushing them over the edge.’’

Obama pointed to studies showing that consumers have an average personal debt of more than $8,000, a load driven higher by credit cards. He said soaring credit card debt could turn into a crisis as big as the one in the subprime mortgage industry.

Now I am not saying that my debt isn’t my fault. The debt that I have accrued is 100% mine. But it’s good to know that a presidential candidate is interested in looking out for people like me to make sure that no one (and no credit card company) kicks me while I’m down.

I haven’t been close attention to the candidates just yet, but this has definitely piqued my interest.

In fact, as I type that I see how debt is like the Greek myth of Sisyphus who’s punishment from Zeus (for trying to be on the same level as the gods – Sisyphus was mortal) was that he roll a huge rock up a steep hill, but before he reached the top of the hill, the rock always escaped him and he had to begin again.

Not that money makes gods of people, but you can’t deny that having money – true money, not available credit – is a powerful thing. And they say that to err is human and what is now more human (or a bigger error) than credit card debt. As ‘humans’ we pretend to be on the same level as those with money – spending borrowed money in an effort to keep up or show ‘purchasing power’. However, we are then only punished with having to fight a seemingly endless battle with that debt. Pushing the rock up the mountain only to lose our grip and watch it roll all the way down again.

…too deep? Eh – it’s late, whatever.

Anyway, so I was reading a few bankrate articles on improving your credit score and I seemed to either have lost site of the fact that an important factor is keeping the cards around 30% spent in order to not lose any points on my credit score (some articles say around 50% is okay). After doing the math this evening, the 6 remaining credit card balances that I am dealing with are 97%, 93%, 89%, 83%, 78%, and 34%.

Not good.

A while ago I read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover (on sale now for $10 on his site…wink.) and, honestly, I wasn’t overly impressed. It seemed like 200 or so pages which could basically be summed up with the sentence “Just pay it off”. However, maybe I read it wrong since Mr. Ramsey seems to be doing fine (yes…he does accept credit cards…another wink) and has a fairly large fan base. I don’t know – I just feel that debt is more a mental thing than anything. If paying it off were that easy – everyone would do it and no one would need advice, support or…ahem…a blog. But it’s not easy, it’s really hard and I think most books don’t address that. Anyhow…

Mr. Ramsey says to pay down your debt with the lowest balance first – and the term he uses to describe how to approach this debt pay-down is “gazelle intensity”. While, being from Boston, the metaphor to me is a little odd – I do understand what he’s saying and have decided to give it a try.

Those of you that have been reading a long know that I’m not a great budgeter and prefer to set up automatic systems as a way to dummy-proof things. So I’m going to refer to a basic budget that I had been piecing together and max out payments to the lowest percentage debt and work my way up to the top. With the help of an expected (knock on wood) Christmas bonus from the new job – I plan to have the first debt (34%) gone by the end of December. The next debt, with the help of another small and expected windfall in the form of a tax refund should help me eliminate yet another debt by February depending on when I receive my W2.

It’s exciting to think of this new plan and to actually watch chunks of debt go away – but I know that regardless of the plan, the amount that I have to work with (my paycheck) doesn’t change and that it will take time, perseverance and some of that mental toughness that no one writes about…well…except for a blogger or two.