At times I feel lucky (and cursed!) to have been on both sides of credit card debt. I’m a credit counselor and I’m a proud owner of about six credit cards with varying amounts of debt on them.

Here’s some tips I can offer:

1. Don’t get a credit card if you can help it. Seriously. A lot of places that insist on you having a Master Card or Visa will take a debit card that has the logos of the same on them. If you want to build up your credit rating, just pay your regular bills on time. Did you know that if you regularly pay your phone and light bills on time for a couple of years you can build up a pretty decent credit history.

2. If you’re going to get a credit card don’t just sign up for the first credit card offer that’s sent to you – and try to avoid anyone in the mall/airport/street-corner that’s offering you a card without reading the terms first. Things you want to look for are what the card’s APR (annual percentage rate) are when you get it and what it will rise to when the trial period is over. Also, you want to look at what kind of grace period the card has (this is a period after the purchase is made to make a payment before the card accrues interest). Some cards have a grace period of about ten seconds before an APR of about 23% kicks in. This is not good. Also, before you sign anything do some research of the card company’s reputation online. You’d be surprised at how some cards that are heavily advertised on television have a nasty reputation with their customers and have had a few class-action lawsuits against them still pending.

3. If you get a card, use it sparingly and when you do charge something, never charge more than you can pay off at the end of your billing period. If you max out your card you can actually incur over the limit fees when the interest is accrued and at this point the card company can actually raise your interest rates.

4. Every now and then ask for a credit limit increase. This is a good way to help your credit. However, just because you have a higher limit this does not mean that you should charge more to the card.

5. If your debt to income ratio gets out of whack and your monthly payments are barely covering the finance charges and you’re not getting ahead it might be time to call in some outside help. There are dozens of Consumer Credit Counseling companies across the country. Again, before you sign up, look up the reputation of the companies. Some companies that claim to be non-profit can turn out huge profits annually and have horrible reputations with their clients – also, if it’s advertised on Tv it doesn’t necessarily make it the best. A reputable credit counseling service can get your APRs lowered substantially and lower the amount you have to pay back by thousands. They won’t get rid of the debt that’s owed, but they’ll lower the amount you pay back – but, keep in mind that there’s a catch. Your cards will canceled permanently and this might hamper your efforts to get new credit cards for a couple of years – but, the good news is that credit counseling itself doesn’t affect your credit score. It’s technically a “neutral” mark.

Credit cards are an amazing way to simplify your life, but remember that nothing is free and if you’re not careful you might find your simple short-term life could turn into a complex long-term problem.