In any game, including debt, there are strategies that will help you win. One of the easiest strategies to master is “no new cards.” As convenient as they are, and even though they have helped most of us through some experiences we may not have gotten through without them, credit card debt should be handled with great caution.

Remember, the maximum limit on each card with your name on it is the amount that goes in your indebtedness column on your credit report. In other words, let’s say you have four cards with a total maximum limit of $12,000. Creditors will look at that $12,000 as if you have indeed charged that much against them, even though you may only have a $250 balance on one of the cards.

One common marketing approach is to offer you a credit card at a low rate if you will consolidate all of your cards onto that card. People who are behind in their payments of other debts often apply for several of them.

The next time you get one of those offers in your mailbox, and I would guess it will be within a week since the average American gets twenty each year, look at it closely. If it looks at first glance like you have been preapproved for credit of $100,000, look again. Find the words “up to” in smaller letters. At the risk of having it show up on your credit rating, I don’t recommend applying for it.

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Beliefs are our conclusions about what we have seen, heard, and experienced. They may be accurate or not, but they are still our beliefs and we build our behaviors on them. Our money beliefs or ” misbeliefs”govern our financial choices and patterns.

Sometimes our beliefs are in line with those who have influenced us, like Monica, and sometimes we take the opposite extreme and vow to never live like we did when we were children, as Nancy did.

Nancy, brilliant and creative, was raised by a tight-fisted mother who always undergave. Nancy was embarrassed by her mother’s seeming selfishness. She made a private vow to be generous. As an adult, Nancy launched a pattern of excessive gift-giving. She was continually surprising friends and family with unexpected gifts, even though she couldn’t afford them. Her credit card debt was out of control, jeopardizing her family’s financial health. Nancy is dynamic and passionate about life, and it is easy to picture her spontaneously buying wonderful gifts for the people around her.

Life circumstances forced Nancy to realize that her belief in generosity at the expense of one’s own family was wrong. She faced it and corrected it. She built a new pattern of behavior and removed a great deal of internal as well as financial chaos from her life. She has found other ways to express her joy and love to people around her.

Our beliefs either help us or hurt us. It is important to determine what beliefs are governing you and supporting your patterns. Look over the following misbeliefs to spot those you have adopted. If you don’t find beliefs that resemble yours, ask yourself what misbeliefs you hold about money. The following is a list of common money-limiting beliefs:

Managing money is complicated (boring, tedious, frustrating, useless).

• A person needs to be good at math to be good with money.
• Others need my money more than I do.
• There will always be someone to take care of me.
• I’ll learn what I need to know about money when I have to.
• I’ve always managed on what money I have and I always will.
• I can do without.
• I wasn’t destined to have a lot of money.
• The rich are snobs.
• My friends would leave me if I earned more money than they did.
• Poor people know how to appreciate life more than rich people.
• I wouldn’t know what to do with extra money if I had it.
• You can’t have wealth and strong values at the same time.
• It takes a lot of money to invest.
• My debt is too big to do anything about it.
• I trust my husband to make good choices for me.
• Married women who insist on being in on financial decisions (like insurance and investing) don’t trust their partners.

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