The warning signs your debt may be a problem, according to a credit counselor — and what to do first

There's no universal dollar amount that makes debt a "problem." According to Bruce McClary of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), what matters more is whether you understand what you owe, can keep up with your payments and still have enough room in your budget to manage everything else.

You may still be making your payments on time. Your balances may not seem completely out of control. But if your debt is starting to feel harder to manage (or harder to ignore), it's time to take a closer look. The warning signs often show up in your finances and your behavior before you're ready to acknowledge that your debt has become a problem.

We asked McClary what those warning signs look like, what typically prompts people to seek help and what the first step should be if you realize your debt has become difficult to manage. And you don't have to be in a financial crisis to ask for help: recognizing a problem early can give you more options for addressing it.

McClary breaks down the warning signs that your debt is an issue into two categories: signs that show up in your numbers and signs that show up in your habits.

Financial signs

If you're only making the minimum payment, that's an early warning sign. "Sticking to the minimum payment only allows you to whittle away a very little bit of the principal balance and keeps you tied to that cycle of debt for a longer period of time," McClary says. It becomes more serious when you're forced to choose which bills get paid this month, and which don't, just to avoid collections calls or a hit to your credit score.

Behavioral signs

Debt problems are often tied to how you use credit itself. "If your spending is tied to emotional issues, if you equate happiness to spending but you don't have the money in your budget yet, that's when trouble tends to build," McClary says. Things come to a head once you've tapped out every borrowing option available to you.

The tipping point

Most people don't act during the slow buildup of debt. They act after one specific, jarring moment, most often a call from a debt collector. "I think that's more often than not, in my experience as a counselor, that was usually the tipping point that would get people to come in to seek help," McClary says.

You don't have to wait until it gets to that point. The real signal to act is the first moment your budget feels like it's one unexpected expense away from falling apart.

When your debt becomes overwhelming, McClary's advice is simple: Reach out and talk to someone before making any big decisions on your own. At the NFCC, your initial counseling session is free, and it includes a full review of your budget and debt, plus a walkthrough of every option available to you. They can help evaluate your next step: "Just because you qualify for financing, doesn't mean it's a good idea for your situation," McClary adds.

When you're catching debt early before it becomes an endless cycle, a balance transfer credit card can buy you time to pay it all down.

The Wells Fargo Reflect® Card has one of the longest introductory APR periods around, with a 0% intro APR for 21 months on qualifying balance transfers made within 120 days of account opening (17.49%, 23.99% or 28.24% variable APR after that, plus a 5% transfer fee with a $5 minimum).

If you'd rather avoid fees altogether, the Citi Simplicity® Card offers a similar 0% intro APR for 18 months (17.74% - 28.49% variable APR after that), with a lower 3% transfer fee for transfers made in the first four months, and it skips late fees and penalty APRs entirely.

If you're juggling multiple debts and just need to simplify your repayment, a debt consolidation loan rolls them all into one payment, ideally at a lower interest rate if you have good credit.

LightStream can approve and fund a loan the same day you apply if you sign by 2:30 p.m. ET, which helps if you need things sorted out quickly.

Happy Money approves loans up to $50,000 with repayment terms as long as 84 months and sends the funds directly to your creditors.

And if your credit isn't in great shape, Achieve approves borrowers with a FICO^® Score as low as 560 and using its direct pay option to creditors can even qualify you for a rate discount.

At CNBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority, grounded in relevant training and experience. For this story, we interviewed Bruce McClary, SVP of Membership & Communications at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC).

At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every debt relief article is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of debt relief products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics.

Catch up on CNBC Select's in-depth coverage of credit cards, banking and money, and follow us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X to stay up to date.