Americans are in credit card debt – some quite deep. Statistics show that the average American carries an average of $10,000 in credit card debt. That’s a lot of money! We are an instantaneous society meaning we want what we want when we want it. So when a consumer has a credit card, it’s often easy to just whip out the piece of plastic and charge purchases.
It’s not that we don’t intend to pay the bill – at least most of the time. Most people have good intentions when it comes to their credit card debt. They’ll pay the bill when they get their next paycheck, they’re expecting a cash windfall and they’ll pay the balance in full then, or they figure they can always make payments. But sometimes life happens and circumstances step in preventing people from paying down their credit card debt which is how many people get into trouble.
Credit card companies like this and they constantly deluge us with offers of low financing rates with high credit limits all in the hopes that they will run up a debt and then have to pay finance charges which is how they make their money. And those credit card offers are coming to people at younger and younger ages.
It’s not uncommon for a new high school graduate to get a credit card offer that they send in for. Many of these young people love the feeling of being able to charge merchandise without having to pay for it at the time. Many of these young people are also not financially savvy and the credit card debt piles up rather quickly.
If you find you have gotten yourself into a problem with credit card debt, it’s important for you to take steps right now to take care of it. That means you need to pay down that debt as quickly as you possibly can until you can achieve a zero balance. Probably the best idea to get out of credit card debt is to cut up the plastic and then make the largest payments you can for as long as you can to help take care of the problem.
Credit card debt is a fact of life for many Americans and it can affect credit ratings which can cause denial of a loan for a car or a home. Get out of credit card debt as soon as you possibly can. It will reflect well on your credit report and make potential future lenders trust you more as a good credit risk.
Click here for help with getting out of credit card debt
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Written by Adam on May 21st, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Credit Repair and Credit Score Tips and Get out of debt and Pay Your Bills and Personal Finance.
Hello-
Since your debt load contributes to 30% of your credit score, the more debt you have, the lower your score. So in order for you to increase your credit score, you need to reduce how much debt you have.
There are several ways to eliminate your debt.
The standard answer is to make sure you are paying more than the minimum and stop charging stuff you don’t need.
A better answer is to try and eliminate some of your debts by using debt settlement. If you are behind on your payments and need help but don’t want to file bankruptcy, you may want to consider settling your debts.
There is a company called Credit Solutions that is one of the biggest debt settlement companies around. They were featured on NBC as one of the top ways to get help with your debt.
When you lower your debts, you can increase your score by up to 30%.
-Adam
Technorati Tags: credit solutions, debt settlement, eliminate debt, get out of debt, improve credit score, increase credit score
Written by Adam on April 24th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Credit Score and Credit Score Advice and Credit Score Tips and FICO Score and Get out of debt and Improve Credit Score and Pay Your Bills and Personal Finance.
Better Ways of Handling Credit Cards to Keep Your Personal Finance Healthy and Secure
No doubt, credit cards make our life easier. But sometimes it makes it too easy as it happened in case of my friend Nancy who borrowed money on her credit card to fulfill her dreams of an Alpine expedition. To date she has not been able to get rid of these consumer debts that she has made awhile back.
Well, for Nancy her credit card debt proved to be detrimental for the health of her personal finance. But the same loan worked to the benefit of another friend Bill, who borrowed the money for pumping in some fresh blood to his small business and it clicked and he could pay off the money within a short time.
So you can see yourself, there are two kinds of credit card debts: good debts generally taken for some kind of investments and consumer debts, which are described as bad credit card debts and generally discouraged to have. Because it is not easy to come out of the consumer debt. But once you have achieved in accomplishing this difficult goal, you will be the happiest person in the world. So here you get the first lesson of better credit card handling and that is: do not get tied up high-cost consumer debts.
The next trick is to keep a distance from the credit cards that charge you an annual fee. Just shop around and you will find many companies offering no-fee credit cards. You can even find out those cards that reward you for using them. Rewards are offered in different forms: you may be rewarded by rebates on certain purchases; you may get a cash-back after making purchase of certain value and so on.
However, if you are confident that you will be able to pay up the credit card dues within the grace period, then only consider these no-annual-fee cards, for they come with a fairly high interest rate. If you plan to carry on your credit card debts to the following months, you should go for those credit cards that offer a low interest rate.
Another credit card mistake most people tend to do is make unnecessary credit card purchases to add on to the reward points. There is no point in making unnecessary purchases so that you get a small reward in the end of the year. It tempts you to actually purchase the things you cannot otherwise afford. It may prove to be detrimental to your long-term financial health.
An intelligent way of better handling of credit cards is to get the credit cards with a lower credit limit. Sometimes, the issuing company raises your credit limit as a means of reward; do not accept it. Just inform your credit card company to reduce the credit level to the point you think suitable for not inducing you into unnecessary purchases.
It is a good idea to replace your credit card with a charge card that requires you to pay the full balance at the end of each billing period. That way you are not tempted to carry over the debt to the next month and fall into a debt cycle. It will prevent you from overspending when you know at the end of the month you have to clear the whole bill.
So you can see there are several ways of better credit card handling. But as you know, prevention is better than cure. So limit the consumption purchases on credit cards, borrow money for investment purposes only. This way you will be able to keep your personal finance sparkling clean.
Written by Adam on March 6th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Credit Repair and Credit Score Tips and Get out of debt and Improve Credit Score and Pay Your Bills and Personal Finance.
Hello-
No one wants to lower their credit score on purpose. But there are ways to lower your credit score that you may not think of or may forget sometimes.
Of course, paying your bills late is one of the biggest reasons your credit score will go down so always make sure to pay all your credit card bills on time.
You also don’t want to have to pay a hefty late fee when you miss a payment so setup automatic payments to make sure your credit card bills are paid on time.
Here are two other ways your credit score can go down:
High Debt Level
While debt is usually measured according to your income, a rule of thumb is to not have debts that equal or are more than one third your annual income. For a person that has a 30K income per year, this amount is 10K, for a person that makes 100K per year, this amount is 33K. It is important to note that usually your mortgage or student loans are not factored in this amount, but are considered.
Having Too Many Outstanding Credit Cards
Another way that your credit card score can be lowered is by having too many outstanding credit cards. While it is extremely easy to have three or four regular credit cards and then a half dozen store credit cards, many lenders look at the amount of credit cards as high risk. The reason is that even though you have zero or a relatively low balance, if the credit line on these cards are 2, 5 or 10K each you can easily run up a bill at any time and thus will have less money to pay off your debts.
Do your best to keep your borrowing to a minimum. If you don’t need the extra credit on higher credit line then say no and don’t take it. If your credit card company does increase your credit line that may be just the temptation you need to start a new spending spree buying stuff you’ll end up regretting later when you get the bill.
-Adam
Source:
Factors that Can Lower Your Credit Score
American Chronicle, CA - 4 hours ago
Following are some of the factors that can lower your credit score. A credit score is a formula that varies among different credit bureaus, …
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Tags: lowercredit score, low credit score, credit score, credit card bills
Written by Adam on January 23rd, 2008 with no comments.
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