Nearly everyone with credit card debt would love to get lower monthly payments.  However, your payments are high for several reasons, and if your primary goal is to get out of debt, reducing debt payments may actually slow you down in reaching your goal.

For most credit cards, the minimum payment is determined by two main factors: your balance and your interest rate (or APR).  If you have a very high balance and you keep using your card and increasing your balance, your payment is going to go up.  

Additionally, if you have high interest rates, you will likely have a high payment as well.  Consumers who see an increase in their interest rates generally see an increase in monthly payment as well.  So if your payment suddenly jumps even though your balance has not, this is often the reason.

So it only makes sense that there are two main ways to get lower credit card payments on your own: by lowering your balance and by lowering your interest rate.  There are also ways to get help lowering your payments which we will discuss later in this article.

Lowering your balance is simple, but difficult for most of us to do.  All you have to do is pay down a large chunk of cash and your balance is lower.  Unfortunately, most of us looking for lower payments do not have the extra cash to do this.  You could also make monthly payments that are much larger than the minimums for several months.  Again, this option is difficult for most people.

For those of us without a lot of extra cash, that leaves the option of getting lower interest rates.  While this is not always a simple task, it is surprisingly easy for many people.  Consumers who have a very good credit history, always make payments on time, and are not close to being maxed out on their accounts may be able to get lower interest by simply calling their credit card company and asking for one!

This is difficult to believe for some people, but it works and I have actually done this myself.  If you think about it for a minute, it does actually make sense.  

Many people first get credit cards when they have little or no established credit history, so they often have a high interest rate initially.  Credit card companies also periodically raise interest rates across the board on some accounts.  However, as you build your credit and raise your credit score, you may qualify for lower rates.  Yet the credit card company will not automatically lower your rate because that would mean less money for them!  But by calling the creditor and asking for a lower rate, they are forced to review your account and lower your interest if you qualify, or risk losing you to another company.

For people who do not qualify for lower rates because their credit is less than perfect, and especially those who have fallen behind on their payments a time or two, there is still a way to get lower interest and lower payments.

For these people, a debt management plan may make sense.  To learn more about a debt management plan, talk to a nonprofit, accredited credit counseling agency.  If you need debt management, the agency can work with your creditors to get lower interest, waive fees, and consolidate your payments in to one low monthly payment.  With those benefits, you will be totally out of debt much, much faster.