Debt Free

Debt free is the most sought after status in a debt burdened world. Amongst the other solutions debt consolidation (http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com ) is the most popular and challenging mode to clean your debts. From down the ages money holds immense significance in building a lifestyle statement. Your comfort and peace on one hand, and worries and crisis on the other is highly dependent on how you use your money. Way back in 1931, Henry Ford in his interview to New York Times said, “Money is like an arm or a leg- use it or lose it”. With the alarming rate of consumer debts in the U.S. during the last decade which has gone skyscraping with a mammoth amount of $2 trillion is a live example that people failed to use their funds in a wise manner.

The major concern now is to be debt free. According to Howard S. Dvorkin, president and founder of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services Inc. “it's a huge problem”. He feels that America cannot be the wealthiest country in the world when all your countrymen are up to their neck in debt. In its latest statistical release on consumer credit, the Federal Reserve reported that consumer debt reached $2.004 trillion in November 2003. The revolving credit card debt for Americans is $683 billion. And, according to a report by Cambridge Consumer Credit Index, 47% of the people who paid less than the full amount on their credit card bills in a month, made only the minimum payment due. In fact, only 13% of Americans with an outstanding balance could afford to pay more than half the balance.

A leading expert on the credit card industry, Robert D. Manning, assumes that American families are likely to come under even greater stress as interest rates which are currently near a historical low will inevitably rise in the coming days. This will be one of the biggest curses that will kill the American consumers in the next downturn. It will be almost impossible to keep the interest rates so low for a longer time now. It is a record that, consumer debt levels has been a surge in personal bankruptcies, which reached an all-time high of 1.6 million households in 2003. The $2 trillion figure represents a doubling of America's consumer debt in less than 10 years. Manning says that this 2.4 trillion figure covers mostly short- and intermediate-term credit extended to individuals, including car loans. It excludes loans secured by real estate, such as home mortgages. When mortgages are taken into account, the nation's households owe close to $9 trillion. Now, government figures show that three out of five U.S. families have credit card debt.

In order to forego this recurrent problem every one is striving to be debt free nationwide. It’s time to rein in that debt and do something about paying it down.
Here are ten popular steps you can take to get your debt under control:

•Evaluate your financial status and plan out ways to be free of debts.
•Consolidate your multiple accounts and prioritize your repayments.
•Eliminate credit cards and thereby you ease your financial burdens.
•Make a spending plan with careful budget schemes.
•Be careful about the equity in your home.
•Increase your income and clean your debts quickly. Pay the accounts with higher interest rates first or consolidate your debts.
•Tap into your Savings Account and squeeze out extra money to be free of debts.
•Retirement Funds could be a great debt solution.
•Sell your Assets and fix your debts.
•Take psychological counseling to keep your cool under debt burdened conditions.

With the huge amount of debt looming large, the financial experts feel that in the long term, the means of an American citizen’s standard of living has to go down. The apparent result foreseen is that, people will have to work longer. If this continues, the average American will not have enough to retire on and will not be able to retire. The record consumer debt also dovetails with other social problems. Survey states, more than half of all marriages end in divorce, and the main reason behind this is financial pressures. Financial experts are contemplating a growth in personal bankruptcies this year after a record surge last year. This is indeed a very scary evaluation for America’s financial scenario. At such a juncture our main aim should be to get debt free.

For better knowledge in this matter please view:
http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/debt-free.html
http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/credit-card.html