A New Way to Cut Credit Card Debt: Pay Off One Purchase at a Time A New Way to Cut Credit Card Debt: Pay Off One Purchase at a Time by Kristen Senz 26 Jan 2021|by Kristen Senz Letting credit card customers pay back specific purchases encourages borrowers to go beyond the minimum, says research by Michael Norton and colleagues. A novel approach to repaying debt could help consumers free themselves from crushing credit card balances faster, according to new research. Rather than asking borrowers to make payments toward their total balances, Harvard Business School Professor Michael I. Norton and colleagues tested a method that lets consumers choose which purchases to pay off each month. Consumers who used this “repayment-by-purchase” method, on average, paid 12 percent more toward their balances.