<prompt> Human: Hello Personal Finance, For the first time since I got my credit card 5 years ago I am finally under 4,500 debt and glad to be chipping away at it. My minimum monthly payments are about 120 but Ive been paying 150 when possible and 200 on this last one. Ive often thought about putting 1 of my monthly paychecks of 1,100 each month directly towards the credit card and using this instead of debiting from my bank. My logic is that as long as I dont spend more each month than my credit card payment then I am still alleviating the debt, possibly even quicker with this large sum.At my current payments it is looking like 2 14 years before I get this card out of my life and would really like to do that beforehand.Would this be a smart move on my part? I get uneasy about not having cash on handin a bank account and uncomfortable about relying solely on the credit card when I am trying to get rid of it. I will be budgeting hard in the coming year as this is my main goal for 2014 before tackling the student loans.Does my logic check out here?Thanks for the help and advice!  <response>: My suggestion is to not use the credit-card at all until it is paid off. Since you are paying interest on the principal, you need to pay this down completely before ever using it again.Put the credit card in a drawer. Cut it up if you have to. Take all of your excess money each month income - spending and throw it all at your credit card until it is down to 0. Then, take all of your excess money and throw it at savings. Then, and only then, once you are ahead of the payments, can you take the credit card out and use it like a debit card. Meaning, every time you go to use the credit card, you should have an option to be able to pay for it in cashdebit. If you cant, then you dont have money to buy what you are buying. If, for example, you spend 1,000 a month on all things, I would wait until I had about 3,000 - 5,000 saved up before I started using my credit card like a debit card. You have income and cash reserves as a little buffer to make sure when that bill comes every month, you can pay it off in full. 