Credit Card Debt Help
Credit card debt affects people of all different lifestyles across the country who are unable to pay off unsecured consumer debt. When purchasing products and services using a credit card, you are required to make timely payments to the credit card company to pay off the purchase balance. Yet if you cannot make repayments or unable to make full payments, credit card interest and fees can add up. This problem leads to enormous credit card debts that can feel overwhelming.
There are many reasons why you may be unable to pay off your credit card debt. Yet there are also ways for you to deal with this debt, adopt wise money management strategies, and improve your credit score to become a responsible card holder. Once you feel confident on how to keep your debts and payments manageable, you can make smarter decisions when using your credit cards.
One of the concerns we often hear during our free consultations at Bond and Botes is how a bankruptcy will affect an individual’s credit score. Typically, when someone mentions their credit score, they are referring to the FICO score, which gathers credit information and calculates a score that is intended to help lenders predict whether an individual will be able to repay their debt, among other things. While bankruptcy will certainly have an effect on your credit score, it is difficult to predict exactly how your score will be affected since the method of calculation used by FICO is a…Read More
Millions of Americans have revolving credit card debt. The rate of interest on credit card debt is usually very high in relation to other types of debt. These rates can vary. Many credit card rates are affected by the Federal Reserve’s benchmark rate. This means that when this rate rises, so does the interest rate on affected credit cards and consumers holding these cards must pay more interest. The Federal Reserve has recently increased its rate and more increases are expected. According to CreditCards.com, the average credit card interest rate is currently 17.01 percent. One year ago, the average rate…Read More
A large credit card issuer has a marketing campaign whose television commercials end with the question, “What’s in your wallet?” No doubt, you have seen one of these commercials. Credit cards are big business. As of June 30th, the total amount of revolving debt carried by Americans exceeded $1 trillion. To put that amount of money in perspective, let’s say that you were very, very wealthy. If you stacked up your money into stacks of cash containing $1 million per stack, you would need one thousand stacks of cash to have $1 trillion. That’s a lot of money! Why and…Read More
As I am writing this blog post for Friday the 13th, I considered a piece on the origins of superstition surrounding this date. I think, however, that I have stumbled across something just as scary as the Knights Templar or a hockey masked killer, and that is outrageous credit card debt! Credit Card Debt Can Happen to Anyone Credit card debt is something that millions of Americans struggle with, and according to a recent CNBC article not even Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh is immune. It has been reported that President Trump’s recent nominee to the Supreme Court racked…Read More
One of the most common questions I get is “how do I improve my credit score?”. Megan Leonhardt has a recent article on CNBC.com offering tips on what affects a credit score and ways to improve a credit score. How Credit Scores Are Calculated Some key factors in calculating your credit score are: Any missed payments Any personal bankruptcies Any high credit card balances Improving Your Credit Score To improve your credit score, she suggests the fastest way is to make timely payments on your debts. You can also focus on first paying off debts that have already gone to collections…Read More
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the level of debt for consumers who are behind on their credit cards increased in the fourth quarter of 2017 by $11.9 billion. That’s an increase of 11 ½ percent. The distressing aspect of this is that these numbers could mean that these consumers are using their credit cards to get by. There was also an increase of a little over 5% of U.S. homeowners struggling with their mortgage payments during the same period. These numbers suggest that, while the economy is improving, some in middle-class America are not seeing the benefits. Credit…Read More
According to a recent CBS MoneyWatch article, the credit card debt problem looks a lot worse in Southern metropolitan cities. Specifically, CreditCards.com’s research found that in Texas alone, three cities placed in the top five. Things certainly are bigger in Texas it appears. But in all seriousness, the credit card debt problem is only getting worse. As I have written before and will likely write again, Americans of all generations are living on credit cards for varying reasons like lifestyle choices or necessity due to wage stagnation. For this study, however, demographics likely play a role in the numbers. The…Read More
According to a recent Forbes article, Millennials may not be doing so badly when it comes to handling their finances. That’s interesting news considering about one-third of Americans—77 million people—have a report of a debt in collections. Further, the average adult owes around $5,178. Despite a poor economic outlook since Millennials began entering the workforce (rising student loan debt, higher month-to-month credit card balances, historically lower wages, etc.) a more recent study found at least two surprising things. First, the average Millennial credit score increased by 4 points since 2016. Second, Millennials lowered their household debt by 8% during the…Read More
I don’t know about you, but as a student, I relished the day when my life was not judged by a number (i.e. grades). Then at some point in my early adulthood, it hit me that my life will forever be judged by a number: my credit score. The State of Credit Experian just released statistics this week on the State of Credit Scores in 2017. Credit scores overall were higher as was debt. The survey showed that the average credit score is 675; Americans have on average 3.1 credit cards; an average mortgage debt of $201,811; average non-mortgage debt of…Read More
American households are carrying a good bit of debt these days according to a recent NBC News article. From what I’m seeing, no matter how you categorize the debt or spin the numbers, it’s not welcoming news to begin the new year. Still, there is no better way to illustrate a point than by staring at the cold, hard numbers, so I will break down a few. The Numbers Don’t Lie $13 Trillion. The New York Federal Reserve found that total household debt (mortgages, student and car loans, etc.) reached slightly under that number in the third quarter—breaking the pre-2008…Read More
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