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Credit Card Debt: How To Deal With It
Do you have a hard time paying your credit card bills? Starting
to get notices from waiting creditors to pay? Worried that you
might lose your properties like your house because of credit
debt? Chin up: Dealing with credit card debt is not as...
Debt consolidation – Options for Reducing Your Debt
Studies show that Americans are now saving less than ever before. Along with that, Americans are carrying a heavier debt load than ever. It’s easy for a home loan, a car loan and a few credit card bills to get out of hand, and many people are...
Debt Consolidation Services, Do You What To Take Advantage Of It?
Are you starting to have problems managing your debt obligations? Are you now contemplating on filing for bankruptcy? However, before you do so, bankruptcy reform bill requires applicants to undergo credit counseling before they can file their...
How to Pay Off Your Student Loans and Reduce Your Debts
Financing a college education is one of the more expensive debts you may incur. Student loans can take years or even decades to pay off. Making late payments or missing payments all together can result in a poor credit rating and collections on your...
UK Debt Consolidation – Helps you Forget Debts Like a Last Night’s Dream.
Debt consolidation is the name given to a very popular process of debt settlement in the UK. Debtors didn’t have lesser choices before the conception of debt consolidation techniques, for settling their debt load. Debt consolidation however...
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Debt Facts
In 2003, almost one and a third percent of US househoulds (about 1,650,000) filed for bankruptcy, indicating that bankruptcy may not have quite the stigma attached to it as in other parts of the world.
Somehow, the USA, with a population of about 294 million, managed to have over a billion credit cards in issue. That's over 4 cards for every man women and child. About 20,000 different cards are on offer from suppliers.
Those credit cards, together with debit cards, account for a quarter of ALL personal expenditure in the US.
Debt is a fairly recent phenomenon. Before the 1930's, most people couldn't borrow, even to finance property, and either rented homes or built them from scratch. Nowadays, mortgage debt runs in the trillions. Personal debt excluding mortgages is about $19k per household on average, over half of which is on credit cards, a figure that is triple the statistic of 1990.
Nowadays, over 40% or US families routinely spend more each year than they earn. The difference? Financed by debt.
Convenient to use? That credit card convenience ends up costing the average Joe 12% more than paying by cash.
If you only ever pay the 2% minimum monthly payments, each $1000 you owe will take nearly 22 years to repay and will add a further £2,300 to the bill, meaning you effectively pay $3,300. Despite this being common knowledge, almost 60% of credit card users DON'T pay their credit card bills in full each month. This reliance on high interest credit cards means that the average US
family pays about $1,200 in interest on their cards each year, at an average APR of 18.9%.
90% of Americans 'are not concerned' by their credit card debts, although about 50% of them would refuse to tell a friend how much they owe.
A quarter of adult Americans have 'maxed out' a card at some time or other.
A tenth of them have been hounded by collection agencies for late payment, the same amount as have gone at least 30 days overdue on their credit card bills.
The typical US student has 7 credit cards, and a significant percentage of them (over 10%) owe $15,000 or more on them.
Credit cards encourage you to spend more. In surveys, it was found that paying for junk food with a card as opposed to cash led to a 50% increase in spend. You want fries with that?
Far from becoming rich, the average middle aged US citizen is only worth about $40,000, and that INCLUDES any equity in their homes. The rest of it belongs to banks and lending institutions. This reflects the drop in personal savings, down from 8% of income to less than 1% in 2004, thanks mainly to the poor returns on savings accounts, and the easy availability of credit.
In 2002, the sum total in card fees for the US credit card sector was $45 billion. It is expected to top $60 billion by the end of 2004. Why is this? Find out at http://www.nodebtever.com
About the Author
Ian Young is a debt counselor working for www.nodebtever.com where the debt consolidation advice is free
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| Advertisements Promising Debt Relief May Be Offering Bankruptcy |
| Cautions consumers about ads in newspaper, magazine and telephone directories that offer quick fixes for debt problems. |
| www.ftc.gov |
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| Welcome to Debt Relief International |
| Welcome to the web site of Debt Relief International. |
| www.dri.org.uk |
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| Debt relief steps, your free guide to debt help. |
| Articles on debt relief, and credit management and repair. |
| www.debtsteps.com |
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| Factsheet - Debt Relief Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries ... |
| The HIPC Initiative is a comprehensive approach to debt reduction for heavily indebted poor countries pursuing IMF- and World Bank-supported adjustment and ... |
| www.imf.org |
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| Special report: debt relief | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited |
| February 6: A year ago the Guardian set out to track the west's promises of action for Africa on aid, trade, health and debt relief. As G8 finance ministers ... |
| www.guardian.co.uk |
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| Debt Relief Options - Findlaw for the Public - |
| Welcome to Debt Relief Options. This section contains information about the ... To begin, select one of the Debt Relief Options topics from the list below ... |
| bankruptcy.findlaw.com |
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| William Brewer |
| The Brewer Law Firm. William E. Brewer, Jr., Attorney at Law Board Certified Consumer Bankruptcy Specialist. 619 N. Person Street Raleigh, NC 27604 ... |
| www.debtrelief.com |
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| www.incharge.org |
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| Economic Policy and Debt |
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| www.worldbank.org |
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| Economic Policy and Debt - The Enhanced HIPC Initiative |
| The Initiative’s debt-burden thresholds were adjusted downward, which enabled a broader group of countries to qualify for larger volumes of debt relief. ... |
| www.worldbank.org |
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| Debt relief - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Debt relief is the partial or total forgiveness of debt, or the slowing or stopping of debt growth, owed by individuals, corporations, or nations. ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Debt Analyzer, Debt Reduction Software, Home Page |
| Debt Elimination at its best! Potential savings of hundreds or thousands of dollars! Build debt reduction, timed elimination or consolidation schedules. |
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| Superior Debt Relief |
| We help you get rid of credit card debt much faster than you may believe possible with credit card debt settlement and negotiation tactics, providing debt ... |
| www.superiordebtrelief.com |
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| Debt Relief - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum |
| Aid Inflows, Debt Relief Yet to Translate into Reduced Poverty (March 20, 2006) ... Fearing that the IMF could tie debt relief to economic benchmarks, ... |
| www.globalpolicy.org |
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| Debt Relief - Global Policy Forum - Social and Economic Policy |
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| www.globalpolicy.org |
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| BBC NEWS | Business | Q&A: African debt relief |
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| news.bbc.co.uk |
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| Debt Relief Australia - Start Reducing Debt Today! |
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| Debt Consolidation Australia, Debt Relief & Bankruptcy Information |
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| Oxfam - Debt and Aid - Debt Relief for Nicaragua: breaking out of ... |
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| www.oxfam.org.uk |
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| What debt relief means for Africa | csmonitor.com |
| This weekend's $40 billion debt cancellation deal could spark major improvements in the lives of the world's poorest people. |
| www.csmonitor.com |
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