My Debt Blog

No not us, we’ve played that game and now we use our money. A story on CNN Money, Barely surviving by using their credit cards has really got my head hurting. This story is so biased and at no point blames consumers for their actions. Then I read this:

Government and agency statistics illustrate this troubling trend. The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that Americans’ credit card debt jumped 6.7% in the first quarter of this year to $957.2 billion, This spike comes despite the fact that nearly one in three banks is tightening guidelines for credit cards.

The US is near $1,000,000,000,000 dollars in credit card debt. According to the story racking up credit card debt isn’t a choice people want to make. They had to run up their credit cards because the costs of their basic needs were going up. The reason they have to use their credit cards is because their lines of credit and home equity has been used up. At no point have they acknowledged the fact that they are living beyond their income and going deeper into debt. The great expert says that they can’t increase their income, but their expenses are going up.

Why does a weak housing market all the sudden create a financial problem so people have to use their credit cards? They drained the equity they were getting out of their house to fund their frivolous lifestyle. The system of not being able to tap their house for cash like an ATM has caused them to run to their credit cards. Now their balances are increasing to the point they cannot make the minimum payment. You will never get out of a hole by digging out the bottom.

The best line was at the very end:

“A lot of people will quit going out to dinner if they see their balances rise,” Hampel said. “This will hurt the economy.”

NO!

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Finally after months of waiting, weeks of speculation, and days of checking our account, the 2008 Economic Stimulus check finally showed up in our account this morning. I know other PF bloggers out there have been waiting on theirs too, so if you haven’t got it yet hold tight.

We received a flat payment of $1200. Half of this will go to our vacation, the $300 that was taken from the EF to fix my car is going back, and we will work $300 into our budget to help us tackle some debt. The government of course wants us to go out and spend it, but we recently purchased an HDTV so I think we already have done our part. This money is nice to receive but is not necessary to our economic stability by no means. I’m glad we didn’t spend this money on something before we received it, because it may have never came.

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