As American consumers slowly begin to regain confidence in the state of their finances after struggling through almost three years of recession and high unemployment, they still face the threat of taking on even more credit card debt. This fact was in clear evidence on the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, the […]

In an article for Fox Business News from November 2011, Steve Bucci addresses a reader’s question about methods to consolidate $30,000 in credit debt. The desired goal was to achieve a single payment at a lower interest rate, but the reader expressed reluctance to use either a home equity line of credit or a mortgage.

We’ve all seen the commercials. We know in a hazy way that something called our credit report compiles our personal credit history into a reference number, or credit score, used by financial entities as a benchmark of “risk.” We may even understand that there are good and bad credit scores. But most people don’t know […]

Since 2008, as they struggled under the growing weight of 10% unemployment, the deepening recession, and counter-productive political bickering, Americans quietly changed their attitude toward debt. As the 2011 holiday season approached, stores advertised the time-honored concept of the “lay away” and more customers paid in cash than ever before. Gone are the days of […]

As Americans have struggled to make ends meet during the ongoing economic recession that began in 2008, they have also faced an unemployment rate that has hovered near 10 percent. Going into the economic downturn, many consumers carried existing credit card debt, and in order to survive, they have run up more over the past […]

The “Occupy” protests that have spread to cities across America are an expression of the level of discontent the citizenry is feeling about the unequal distribution of wealth in the nation. There is also, however, an even greater gap in opportunity, broadened by the issue of mounting student loan debt. Many of the protesters are […]

Most people have a hazy awareness that the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has now spread to cities and college campuses across the nation, is an expression of a growing dissatisfaction with and suspicion of the United States federal government. However, the vast majority of Americans don’t realize that the movement bears significant similarities to […]

Although student loan debt was already a problem in the United States, the recession coupled with skyrocketing tuition costs over the past three decades has greatly intensified the financial stress new graduates now face — to the point that total student loan debt exceeds credit card debt in the U.S., standing at an estimated $898 […]

With excessive credit comes excessive debt. The most efficient way to manage that debt would be something called a Debt Settlement. These have been around for years, thousands of years to be exact. It’s been only a decade or two since they’ve become popular in the United States. Debt Settlements were established as a means […]

If you are facing credit card debt, it can seem impossible to get out of. Continuing to add to your balance and missing payments will only dig you deeper and deeper into debt. The very first moment that you think you may have trouble making payments is the time to start planning to reduce your […]