Credit cards have got more people into financial difficulty than anything else and the banks are only too willing to give out more cards and increase credit limits encouraging people to spend more and more money.

So what can you do about your credit cards?

Well if you are managing to make minimum payments each month the first step is to cut them up and not use them any more because that puts a hold on that source of spending and immediately brings into effect some control over your finances.

You should certainly stop using your credit cards but you might need to keep them intact in the interim if you have debt where you are paying even higher interest rates than the cards, to allow you to juggle your money around so you're paying off your high interest debts first.

You might be in a situation where your credit cards don't have the highest interest rates of all your debts so rather than paying them off target the other debt before your credit cards.

You should look at consolidating your debts and paying off your credit cards with one loan of a lower interest rate. This will not only stop you from buying things on the card but the savings on interest can go towards debt reduction.

Credit cards make it all too easy for people with bad habits to slip up and fall back on those bad habits by buying things that they think they need just because they want them. Don't fall into that trap and if you feel that you might then make sure the cards are rendered useless so you can't use them.

Consider how good your life would be now if you had no credit card debt and no need to pay installments each and every month. Surely that's enough to make you want to cut them up right now and never use them again.