Dig out your latest credit card statement and see how much you have outstanding on each of your credit cards. This should be stated clearly near the top of your statement and reflects the amount of money that you owe your credit card provider, made up of any purchases or balance transfers you've used the cards for, plus accrued interest.

It goes without saying that now you've resolved to pay off your credit cards, you shouldn't be increasing the amount you owe in any way by spending on the cards or transferring balances to them, otherwise the debt will continue to grow until it spirals out of control. The outstanding balance on your cards should only be decreasing towards zero from this point on.

List your balances

Make a list of:

• the amount you have outstanding on each of your cards
• the interest rate you're being charged on each card (or interest rates if you're paying different rates on purchases, balance transfers and cash withdrawals)
• the amount you are repaying each month
• any interest free periods or introductory deals you're benefiting from & their expiry date

Remember to include store cards in the list, as these are really a form of credit card and in fact often have a higher interest rate than the average credit card.

You'll need to total up the balances on all of your cards to find out what you have outstanding overall. It is also be a good idea to list your outstanding balances in order, from the most expensive (the one with the highest interest rate) to the cheapest (the one with the lowest interest rate). This will come in handy later on.

Using a credit card calculator you'll be able to figure out exactly how long it would take to pay off all of your cards if you only ever made the minimum repayments on them, which may be an alarmingly long time!

Now that you know the exact level of debt you are dealing with, you're well-placed to begin doing everything you can to clear your credit cards for good.