Leave Debt in the Dust: Map your own path out of the financial minefield |
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According to your calculator, you'll be free and clear of your credit card debt somewhere around the time "River Dance" opens on Mars. With you dancing the lead role.
And even that seems optimistic. After all, this isn't the first mountain of debt you've tried to scale. But, faced with the appalling choice of paying off another debt in minimum monthly droplets, or downsizing our lifestyles, many of us will opt for the minimum, and return to pondering the challenges of tap-dancing across that red Martian soil.
Raised in a post-war era of plenty, we baby boomers appear to expect good times even if it means being in the red (no pun intended). Then there are the more grown-up demands of today: saving for our kids' college tuition while aging parents may need our financial help. Add to the mix, omnipresent media images of popular consumption plus ever-easier access to credit, and you have the makings of one big debt problem.
"We have become a want-based society," says Joy Thormodsgard, chief operating officer of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling in Silver Spring, Maryland. Indeed, we have become a nation of debtors. About 60 million families carried an average credit card debt load of over $7,000 in 1998, when the rate of yearly personal savings dropped to .5 percent of disposable annual personal income.
Sound hopeless? It's not. If getting out of debt is your number one financial objective, take heart. It can be done. But it will take a new awareness of your spending habits, discipline, and some debt management savvy to make it happen. Here's a look at some major problem areas and how to start tackling them. Next: Credit Cards >
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