For many years the use of bank cards has been encouraged on multiple levels in our culture. Retailers encourage you to take out credit by offering you an in store discount on your purchases for that day. In other scenarios they offer to give you the satisfaction of the purchase at the moment and the opportunity to delay the payments until later. Lenders encourage the use of consumer credit to finance that vacation or to pay for the kids braces.
The convenience and flexibility offered by the credit card industry made these propositions very appealing indeed. Numerous consumers have experienced the tremendous advantages and benefits of easy credit. There is however a down side to this picture that comes in the form of excessive consumer debt. In fact recent studies based on a 2010 report by the Federal Reserve indicate that the average balance owed by consumers is nearly $14,500. When you study these numbers over the years, these outstanding balance numbers have been steadily going up.
There are a couple of primary directions from which the issue of excessive credit card debt can be dealt with. At an industry level, greater consumer instruction needs to take place in regards to the proper handling of consumer credit. While education can raise the public understanding the issues, the response of the industry has to go even deeper. One solution would be stiffer approval standards for would be credit card holders. This could include such things as pre-requisite financial management and budgeting courses. Another solution would be the development of truly "personal" lines of credit. While most credit lines have product based limits, this type of arrangement would set limits based exclusively upon the proven creditworthiness and stability of the borrower. Once a card is issued lenders need to be seeking to implement early warning criteria based on the spending habits, usage and payment history of the borrower. Whenever the patterns presented by a borrower indicate the potential for accruing excessive debt, the company would then restrict the account and require further education and demonstrated stability to reopen the credit line.
The second approach to confronting excessive credit card debt occurs on an individual level. A borrower should have a household budget set up before ever utilizing consumer credit. This budget will allow the borrower to know their cash flow position each month and quickly ascertain if they are getting too deep into debt. Ideally, the borrower will want to set up their household budget to ensure that, that they can pay off their outstanding credit card balance each month. Developing discipline is significant if a borrower is going to stay clear of the difficulty created by having extreme levels of consumer debt.
For those already overwhelmed by runaway consumer debt there are debt settlement options available. These could include such tools as credit card litigation or consumer credit counseling.
