You only ever pay the minimum on your credit card

Let us look at this plainly and with reason, for the minimum payment hides its true nature behind a feeling of responsibility. The minimum payment is designed to keep you paying, not to free you — it is set low by the lender on purpose, low enough that the balance barely moves while the interest compounds, so paying it is meeting the lender's requirement, not handling the debt, and often the opposite; see it for what it is and stop mistaking compliance for progress. Do the arithmetic you have been avoiding — you have not calculated what this balance costs you per year in interest because the number is unpleasant, but you cannot govern what you refuse to look at, so calculate it plainly and let the startling, clear fact do what comfortable vagueness never could. And pay against the balance deliberately, and the mechanism reverses — every amount above the minimum lowers the interest charged next month, turning the compounding in your favor, so choose a sustainable figure above the minimum and pay it with intention. Would you do the arithmetic now — what is the balance and the rate?