Credit card debt actually creeps up on you quite slowly in most cases. Unless there is a sudden large charge on your card, it grows in a piecemeal fashion. However there are warning signs but for the recreational shopper and avid vacationer, it is easier to bury one’s head in the sand. And the card companies will not really warn of problems until it is too late. Let’s analyze how credit card debt creeps up on you by listing a few key predecessor events:

Your credit card balances begin to increase. You take that vacation but can’t pay it off just yet. Then, after getting back from vacation, your worn-out car breaks down and you have to pay for the repair on your credit card. The credit card debt builds a little more. Then, the vacation is forgotten about because now the holiday season is approaching and you build up your credit card debt a little more because everyone needs a gift.

The minimum payments begin to get difficult to pay. You have enough from your job to pay the credit card debt but it is getting harder. Other things like utilities and groceries are getting more expensive. Gasoline prices have skyrocketed. You would like to get a new job but cannot find one that pays better than the one you have now. You start having garage sales to make some extra money but that income cannot be relied on.

Credit card debt is foremost on your mind and you miss your first payment. You’ve been so worried about your debt that you forget there is a payment due. You miss your first payment. You get your first late fee tacked on to your credit card debt. No phone calls come in yet. You get it paid along with the late fee and figure you are in the clear.

Universal default kicks in and your interest rate is raised. You figure your debt is still under control until something known as universal default gave all of your credit card companies a reason to raise your interest rate on all of your cards. Universal default is where one credit card company can tell the others that you might be having problems. Do they help you? No. They raise your interest rates across the board. You are a higher credit risk for them now.

Once the interest rates skyrocket to the default rate, your credit card debt really gets out of control. Now you definitely don’t have enough to cover even the minimum payments and you begin juggling payments, doing balance transfers, paying with convenience checks, and all the other desperate actions characteristic of this scenario. Your credit card debt is now a disaster.