How to Freeze Cards with Credit Cryogenics

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By Lindsay Morris
eHow Contributing Writer

Article Rating: (18 Ratings)

Freeze your credit-card spending

Stormy financial forecasts call for creative contingency plans. Taking precaution requires much-more extreme measures than stashing your hard-earned cash under the mattress. Consider this time around credit cryogenics, the act of freezing one's debt-liest credit card(s) in your friendly Frigidaire.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A pot of brewed coffee or black tea
Maxed-out credit card
One medium-sized Tupperware or other frozen-food storage container
An opaque plastic grocery bag

Step 1

Survey credit-card damage

Face Your Credit-Card Debt Demons. Spread out on a clear workspace your most recent credit-card statements. Note and highlight the balances and annual percentage rate (APR) of each.
Step 2

Consolidate repayment

Consolidate Credit Cards. Single out the card statement(s) with the highest APR and/or heaviest debt load. Debtors who aim to pay off the highest balances first — unless they can double their minimum monthly credit-card payments — often find themselves even deeper in the hole. Set aside one or two low- or zero-APR credit cards and shred the highest APR cards.
Step 3

Place cards in a freezer-proof container

Throw a Private Tupperware Party. Transfer the total balance from all credit card debt to the remaining cards. Then, transfer those credit cards from your wallet into a freezer-friendly storage container.
Step 4

Cover credit cards in coffee

Just Add Coffee. No frozen block of plain H20 is going to shield the seductive flash of your MasterCard hologram. You'll have that Tupperware in your paws in no time — along with your credit-card number. Fill the container with black coffee and save yourself extra shame and debt.
Step 5

Freeze away credit-card spending temptation

Take That Card and Shove it... in the Freezer! But first, place it in a plastic grocery bag as an extra security measure. Push the parcel to the back of the freezer behind the two-year-old bag of frozen spinach or other long-forgotten food stuff.
Step 6

Pay down credit card debt

Pay Debt Forward. Out-of-sight is not out-of-mind. Just because you can't see a coffee-popsicle of a credit card doesn't mean balance and interest rate have disappeared. Double the minimum monthly payment and set up automated bill-pay.
Step 7

Consider financial software

Balance with a Budget. Without our plastic friends, we are left with old-fashioned checking and hopefully savings accounts. A budget therefore is mission critical to debt resolution. Invest in financial software such as Quicken or create your own spreadsheets using Microsoft Office applications (Excel is a natural but Word also offers a variety of user-friendly budget-worksheet templates).
Step 8

Find emotional and financial support

Get Help. If within a few weeks you find yourself gravitating like a moth toward your freezer, tempted to chisel through the iced coffee, it's time for an intervention. Ward off a financial crisis on the homefront by joining a support group, such as Debtors Anonymous, or researching other credit-card counseling solutions such as those listed in Resources.