In the swift moving life of 2010 it is difficult to imagine handling the consumer market without a credit card, or even better still, a purse full of credit cards and a variety of store cards. As we commenced 2004 that is exactly what I had in my purse and all of them were maxed out. There were 8 various credit cards and 3 store cards and the full amount owing on the cards was over $90,000 at an average interest rate of 19.5%. But I didn't have a dilema - we had a terrific Xmas 2003 and then a couple of weeks vacation and when the bills came in around the end of January 2004 I didn't have the cash to pay them. Now I had a dilema.
The secret to getting out of a challenging spot like this is to, without more ado, declare there is a dilema. Indubitably I had the dilema for ages before I would declare that I was in trouble with my swelling debts but by the end of January 2004 I had disclosed that I had a dilema, not only to myself, but I went and spoke personally to all of the companies involved and told them I had a dilema and thrashed out the ways that I could address the spot so that it could be fixed.
Everyone was spoken to before I missed a payment and I asked for a short exclusion from payment while I calculated my options and organised my finances again. This was acceptable to everybody and I spent two days studying on the internet to find the best way for us to move on from here. After chatting with my wife we both decided that the credit cards must go because they were making it far to easy for us to purchase things that we really didn't require. By the end of January I had amassed all the card debts into one loan for 5 years at 9.5% interest and all credit card accounts had been finalised and cards destroyed.
Credit card debts are one of the biggest problems facing American couples today and using American Express, Mastercard or Visa has become the usual practice - I often see people purchasing their groceries on the credit card. I can recall not so far back when cash was the preferred system of payment but now in my shop where we turnover $5,000 every day there is generally less than $50 cash. Cards are just so easy and we whip them out and buy things without being aware of parting with our hard earned cash money.
With my own debts they swiftly got out of control because I would charge anything and everything without the smallest thought of how could I pay for it and the question of did I really require it - well everybody needs the latest huge screen home theatre system don't they?. There is a happy conclusion to this tale because with some real dedication and following a plan, without wavering, we were able to eliminate the debts utterly in just under 4 years. We do now have just one American Express credit card for emergency use only and it must be repaid when the bill comes in. We make this concession because it is challenging to book an air ticket online or rent a car without a credit card and because of our new status of no debts we do take a few air flights now.
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