Where?

Bansko, Bulgaria. Fast becoming one of Europe's hottest ski resorts and showing no signs of slowing down for beginners, Bansko is where smart money is being invested. From as little as £30,000 (US$52,594) you can own a 1 bedroom apartment in heart of Bulgaria's trendiest ski resort, at base of imposing Pirin Mountain range. It sounds impressive but is it just a flash in pan or a serious investment opportunity promising high rental yields and real capital growth?

The skiing is first class, that much is not in doubt. The high peaks offer powder white snow for up to 5 months of year and summer season continues for a further 2, providing a wonderful holiday home for ski enthusiasts and great returns for buy-to-let investors. Plenty of money has been pumped into facilities and ski school ensures that beginners and experts alike are catered for. There are plans to double length of runs at Bansko over next 10 years so whilst this is a relatively new ski resort; it is certainly a progressive and well maintained one.

A very old town full of character, situated just 150km south of Sofia, Bansko is about 2 hours from nearest Bulgarian airport. It lies at base of Vihren, highest mountain in Pirin range at almost 3000m. Bansko is interestingly placed geographically, close to border with Greece and Macedonia and there is planned Greek-Thessalonic Highway that will connect Bansko to Greece by road. It is said that on a fine day you can see all way to Aegean from Pirin Mountains. In theory, when you finish skiing in Bansko in April you could drive to Greece for a dip in Aegean.

The cobbled streets of town itself are clean and well lit. Amongst obligatory 'après ski' styled bars and night-clubs are mehanas, underground taverns offering local cuisine and live music. Currently town is representative of a building site with scaffolding and cement mixers a plenty. Looking beyond production equipment, one can quite quickly see that ends will justify means. Bansko has clearly been subject of considerable investment into an improved infrastructure. Certainly more so than competing, better known towns such as Borovets or Pamporovo.

Great as credit cards can be, one of easiest "things" that can happen in life is building up of a large credit card debt. For whatever reason, making purchases with credit cards always seems much easier than spending cash to obtain a product or service.

Maintaining high levels of credit card debt is not prudent. The interest rates associated with most credit cards is high. In fact, many people have managed to rack their card balances up so high that only minimum payment is made each month. As a result, these people are taking years if not decades to pay down their credit card balances, all while wasting an incredible sum of money in interest payments alone.

In this article, a number of strategies to reduce credit card debt are presented. These tips are general in nature but will provide a person with credit card debt a solid plan for reining in credit card balances.

Target highest rates of interest. If you can, transfer balance to another credit card, where you will achieve a zero or low interest rate for a set period. While this balance is not costing interest you can target other debts that are. Make sure you are prepared for when offer period runs out and have another balance transfer offer ready to take over. You should look to have your credit card application a few weeks before your current offer period runs out. If you cannot transfer balance then pay off as much as you can afford, so balance reduces as quickly as possible.

Credit card companies are very competitive and as such there are some very good 0% balance transfers and purchase offers available. Look to take advantage of these, but make sure you have a plan in place on how to deal with balance when offer finishes. Remember that debt has not gone away.

As mentioned previously in this article, credit card accounts usually have high interest rates. The combination of high interest rates and free spending patterns can result in rapid escalation of credit card debt.