NEW YORK (MONEY Magazine) - Highway robbery. That's what Jill King thought every time she made a payment on her credit card. "I would make what seemed like really big payments," King says, "and it didn't seem to have any effect at all."

Chances are, many of your monthly expenses are borrowing costs, from your mortgage to your credit cards. So lower -- and lock in -- those rates before they go up.

Here's how to do it. Plus, see steps one through four in Jean Chatzky's nine-part program for getting out debt. Continued...