Delinquent credit card debt is like having mold in your house. As time passes, they both silently get worse and become more difficult to fix.
When you make a payment after the due date on your credit card statement, you have a delinquent credit card account on your hands. You might think that one missed payment doesn't matter. In fact, many people seem to believe this.
According to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling 2018 Consumer Financial Literacy Survey, 25 percent of Americans said they didn't pay their bills on time. While it's heartening to know that 75 percent do pay their bills on time, the 25 percent who don't are on ...
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Millennials Share Everything With Their Spouses – Except Their Finances
Millennials share everything on social media, but when it comes to their spouses, they are doing a poor job of discussing their finances, which is creating stress and strain in their relationships.
This is just one of the findings from Fidelity Investments' Couples & Money study, which found that, while the majority of survey respondents said they are communicating about finances, one-third don't even know how much the other half of the couple makes, while one-seventh aren't even sure if their spouse is employed.
Life is busy, and millennial newlyweds have to juggle their careers, their marriage and debt. That may be one of the ...
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Two Personal Finance Issues That Are Not Going Away in 2018
It's a new year and, unfortunately, many of us continue to grapple with financial issues that do not want to go away. Here are two to think about:
Not savings enough for retirement.
I have encountered countless clients who, although having worked for years, have accumulated little or no retirement savings. They have allowed debt to control their lives and have sacrificed savings opportunities in the process. This perspective must change.
Bankruptcy can be a first step toward achieving financial security. Did you know that retirement savings are fully protected from your creditors - even in bankruptcy? Whether you have one ...
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Seniors Struggling With Debt Likely To File For Bankruptcy
Older Americans are being squeezed in many ways. Healthcare and other basic expenses are rising. Fewer have pensions to supplement their Social Security income in retirement. Low interest rates mean what savings they do have isn’t growing quickly — unless they are willing to invest in higher-risk financial products.
And then there’s the other side of the equation: Credit and Debt. Many seniors have not properly planned for retirement financially. Many have used credit cards freely in the earlier stages of retirement to maintain their pre-retirement lifestyle without a plan on how to repay it.
Older Americans are increasingly struggling ...
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Bankruptcy Filings Are Down – But That Doesn’t Mean People Do Not Need to File
Reuters reported today that the number of U.S. businesses and consumers filing for bankruptcy fell 14 percent in the first half of 2012 and could end the year at the lowest level since before the 2008 financial crisis, according to data released by Epiq Systems.
New bankruptcy filings fell to 632,130 in the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year, according to Epiq Systems Inc, which manages documents and claims for companies in bankruptcy.
The number of businesses filing for bankruptcy dropped 22 percent to 30,946 and the number of consumers seeking court protection from creditors fell 13 percent to 601,184.
"We ...
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Want to be Debt Free? Stop Procrastinating!
My topic of discussion this week is procrastination. In my last post, I discussed the ramifications of waiting too long to file bankruptcy. The same advice goes for anything to do with your finances. Even though there's a little procrastinator in all of us, there's a difference between putting off doing the laundry or washing the car and putting off paying your bills on time. While its understandable that you would want to put off something you don’t want to do, procrastinating with your finances till tomorrow will almost always hurt your credit score today. Luckily, you can live in the financial present and break the habit of ...
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