From a very young age, I was taught how to manage money properly by my parents.  I was sure to save a bit of everything that came into my pocket and by the time I was 18 I had my own little nest egg of about $10,000.  At this point in my life, I went to college and it was at this point that I started to run into money problems.

It all started with the first credit card that I was approved for an it went on from there.  All of a sudden, I could spend outside of my means and I could just pay it off with a low minimum payment each month.  After my first car, I have a second, then a third, and then I started to run for problems.

I was at the point where he needed to find a guide on how to reduce credit card debt without having to declare bankruptcy.  I had considered taking advantage of some of the poor credit debt consolidation loans on the market but I figured that by taking that route it was only going to be a Band-Aid solution.

It was at that point that I was introduced to the concept of debt diet plans which was a systematic way to reduce your credit card debt while making sure to avoid getting into this situation a second time.  Though I still have a way to go before I am debt-free, I know that by following the debt diet that I am on that I have saved my credit score and avoided going bankrupt.