A Growing Interest

I don't know how many of you have credit card debt.  We do.  It's one of our ardent goals to pay it off this year and we are working hard at it.  I suppose I've been living under a rock but for the first time I noticed something on my credit card statement that truly shocked me.  There was a warning called a "Minimum Payment Warning" with a box that showed how many years it would take to pay off our current balance by paying only the minimum payment.  I was stunned when it said 23 years.  Then, it showed how long it would take to pay off the same balance by adding an extra $80 to the payment - it was 3 years.   For several months we have been adding quite a bit extra to the minimum and when we get it paid off I am going to sit down and cry tears of joy.  We have not used the card in months and that is the other secret to getting it paid off.  As long as anything is tacked on to a burgeoning balance, no amount of extra payments will ever result in paying it off.   In 23 years my husband will be 65 and I will be 60 - to know this credit card burden could actually follow us into retirement, steal from our children and basically hold us back in all sorts of ways disgusts me.  I took the blinders off and faced reality when I read that statement.  If you dare take a look at yours - but sit down first.