Interesting problem, can pre pay cards help our Debt Management and so prevent us running up more Credit Card Debt? Are they a more viable answer to credit cards? Before we answer these queries let us have a look at precisely what a pre pay card is.
Put extremely simply, it’s a card that you can bung any sum of cash on and use whenever you get anything. Once you’ve used the sum allocated on the card you cannot exceed it. You can put funds against it by way of all the standard methods; ATM, internet, on the telephone or even by way of text messaging. Alternatively you can go to your neighborhood post office or bank and even a quantity of non finance suppliers and find preloaded cards.
A pre pay card can help us to budget effectively, enabling us to allocate income for specific reasons; the weekly food allowance, or petrol for example. Also as David Roger, managing director for the Debt Foundation charity suggests, it can help prevent us mistakenly using that overdraft once more and going in to the red.

In theory it should make it less complicated for all of us out there who are just a little too friendly with our credit cards. After all anything that eases the probability of running up more Credit Card Debt has to be worth a try hasn’t it?
An added good feature is that they’re not linked back to our bank account. This means if a certain malicious little person steals our card and tries to take up our identity then they won’t have access to the whole of our precious funds. In addition if they were to try and use it via the internet they wouldn’t be able run up extortionate bills.
Then again before you get all excited and charge out there to obtain one, there are a number of things to keep in mind. Firstly the most obvious; you can only load it with funds that you already have. Would seem blatantly apparent but it is so easy to overlook that that piece of plastic in your hand is not an limitless reserve of credit that we can pay no heed to when the statement comes through. Imagine the embarrassment at the checkout if you try and acquire something that is more than the money existing on the card! A crucial thing to memorize; only load it with what you can manage to pay for.
Furthermore there are particular charges incurred, monthly payments for instance and some even have inactivity charges.

So, yes a different means of Debt Management they may possibly be, but what other possibilities are there, other than not spending what we haven’t got? For starters we might help our finances by being stricter with ourselves. We must check those impulse purchases that we afterward regret, but still have got to pay for.

Having a sensible budget and keeping to it goes a long way towards preserving a fit bank balance and reducing those worry levels.

If we are in debt up to our eyeballs then budgeting is a must. We can look at possibilities such as Debt Consolidation for one, to ensure we won’t feel so overwhelmed with it all. By placing all those debts into one pot allows us to see what we’re dealing with, not only that but Debt Consolidation will enable us to have one reduced monthly payment.
Anything we opt for the bottom line is, do not get into more debt than we can handle.

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