My long-time colleague Karen McCall published a fabulous post last week called “Saving Your Way out of Debt”, where she lists ten steps for breaking the vicious debt cycle so many people are caught in. I want to call attention to her second step: Stop the leaks by stabilizing debt.

McCall says that if you’re trying to get out of debt, you first have to stop using your credit cards. Gasp!  Not use a credit card? But she insists this is true, and I know you won’t be surprised that I agree with her. She writes, “This (continuing to use your credit cards if you’re trying to get out of debt) is like sitting in a boat with a grapefruit-sized hole in the side and bailing out the gushing water with a thimble.”

Yikes. What an image.

Indeed, it’s a very apt image. If you owe thousands of dollars to Capitol One, Discover or Macys, your very first step is to stop adding more debt. Of course this part makes sense. But what people underestimate is that it is nearly impossible to keep from adding to your debt load if you continue to use your credit cards. People will rationalize that they can, and indeed, must, use their credit cards. They say they will pay far more than the minimums and get out of debt. Or they will try to pay off in full all the new charges.

How is that working for you?

It IS theoretically possible to get out of debt while still using your credit cards, but it is the slowest and most frustrating way to pay off debt. And I can say that I’ve rarely seen someone pull it off.

Why would you do this to yourself? It is very unkind to you. Why, if you want to get out of debt, would you choose the slowest and most frustrating and cloudy way possible to become debt free? 

It doesn’t matter how smart you are– credit cards foster money fog. You charge things in one month that you pay for in another. And you have old debt and then your new charges. This all creates fog. And credit cards affect both our brains and our emotions. (Remember, people spend 20-30% more when they use a credit card because the money doesn’t feel as real since it is not immediately coming out of their checking account.) The bottom line is that as long as you use a credit card, you will not be forced to find a way to pay for your life with the money you currently have.

As McCall writes, you must first plug the leak—stop using your credit cards– BEFORE you start reducing your debt. You simply can’t get out of debt while you continue to put purchases on your card. You are going in a circle!!! You are paying on your credit card while you are adding to it.

Learning to stabilize- not add more debt—will change your life. If you stabilize your boat and plug that grapefruit-sized hole first, you can start to make amazing and sustainable progress.

Bailing out water with a thimble is very tiring. Really.