If winning the lottery is your plan for getting out of debt, you may want to rethink that strategy. If your plan for becoming debt free is by making minimum payments, the idea is right up there with the strategy of winning the lottery. As hard as this may sound you played a proactive role in getting in debt, you have to take one to get out of debt. Getting out of debt is not hard, it’s challenging but what is not?

Here is a 7 day plan for getting out of debt. The assumption that has been made is that you have stopped charging to your credit cards.

Day 1.  Gather all your bills/Pull your credit card report: It surprises me sometimes how people refuse to open their bills. Bills do not disappear just because you do not want to deal with it, and also interest you incur does not stop either. If you fall in the category of those who refuse to open the bill, do yourself a favor, open them. See how much you actually owe. You do not want a situation in which you think you are out of debt and then a bill pops up.

Pull your credit report. Your credit report has a list of all your credit cards and their balance. If you have not obtained a free copy of your credit report for the year, you can obtain one from annualcreditreport.com.

Once you have gathered your bills and pulled your credit report make a list of all the bills you owe. A list is important because it makes a seemingly huge pile look small, also it is for organization. On your list identify:

• Amount owed/Balance
• Company (credit card) name
• Contact information
• Interest rate
• Method of interest calculation