Credit Card Debt

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Debt Help, Credit Cards

  • Consumer Debt in the United States totaled $2.40 Trillion, as of June 2010 (Source: Federal Reserve’s G.19 report on consumer credit, November 2010)
  • The average credit card debt per U.S.  is $14,750*
  • U.S. Consumers held 609.8 million credit cards. (Source: “The Survey of Consumer Payment Choice,” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, January 2010)
  • The average U.S. Consumer has 3.5 credit cards as of year-end 2008 (Source: “The Survey of Consumer Payment Choice,” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, January 2010)
  • The average APR on a new credit card offer is 14.73% (Source: CreditCards.com Weekly Rate Report, Feb. 9, 2011.)
  • Total U.S. revolving debt (98 percent of which is made up of credit card debt): $796.5 billion, as of November 2010 (Source: Federal Reserve’s G.19 report on consumer credit, March 2010)
  • U.S. credit card 60-day delinquency rate: 3.23%. (Source: Fitch Ratings, January 2011).
 Credit card debt piles up in multiple cards. It’s easy to see from these statistics Americans are knee deep in credit card debt.  And if you miss a couple of payments you could see your interest rate double or even triple.  It’s not uncommon to see delinquency interest rates close to 30%.  Add late fees, over limit fees and interest and it may seem like you’ll never pay off your debt.  In fact if you make minimum payments of $400 on $10,000 with an interest rate of 18% it will take you 13.5 years to pay it off (creditcards.com). If you have a 5 year old child, your child will be 18 years old by the time you pay off your credit card.Most of our clients have experienced a financial hardship and can no longer afford to make the minimum payments on their credit cards.  Loss of job, reduction in income, death, divorce or serious illness can be devastating.  Fortunately there are several options for struggling consumers including Better Money Management, Debt Settlement, Debt Management and as a last resort Bankruptcy.

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