Live data from Hacker News

How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

blog.readyforzero.com

1–10 of 127 posts

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#2
"How Americans get out of credit card debt."

Don't most of them just pay it off? Sure takes a long time, but eventually don't most people pay what they owe?

BTW, there are only about 1.5Million bankruptcies in the US every year ... that's <1% of borrowers. So I wouldn't use it as the first kind of "traditional option".

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#3
Wondering how many people use the consolidators who promise to manage down your debt by acting as midddlemen between you and collectors? What advantages (if any) does Ready for Zero offer over this method?

It took me 11 years to pay off 2 credit cards, and I'm still petrified to go into CC debt again. Will Ready for Zero also eventually offer planning tools for saving up for a big ticket item like a new MacBook Air so that I don't have to pull out a CC to purchase it?

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#5
post #2

"How Americans get out of credit card debt." Don't most of them just pay it off? Sure takes a long time, but eventually don't most people pay what they owe? BTW, there are only about 1.5Million bankruptcies in the US every year ... that's <1% of borrowers. So I wouldn't use it as the first kind of "traditional option".

It's kind of misleading to say that it's "only" 1% of borrowers file, because the scope of time is focused on one year, but not only do borrowers have a much larger average lifetime, but the impacts of bankruptcy last 10 years. If we say that the borrower pool stays fairly static over a 10 year period, that means really you're talking about AT LEAST 15% of borrowers are filing bankruptcy.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#7

Wondering how many people use the consolidators who promise to manage down your debt by acting as midddlemen between you and collectors? What advantages (if any) does Ready for Zero offer over this method? It took me 11 years to pay off 2 credit cards, and I'm still petrified to go into CC debt again. Will Ready for Zero also eventually offer planning tools for saving up for a big ticket item like a new MacBook Air s…

Try something like: http://www.smartypig.com (online savings accounts goal oriented) or http://www.mint.com (nice goals feature)

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#8
post #6

What happened to "stop buying things you don't need"? I had a friend tell me he was considering a consumer loan because repaying his other loans didn't leave him with enough money. I swear, it's as if people have never seen money before.

You can buy things you don't need, and you can buy things with money you don't have, but doing both at the same time is a really bad idea.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#9

Wondering how many people use the consolidators who promise to manage down your debt by acting as midddlemen between you and collectors? What advantages (if any) does Ready for Zero offer over this method? It took me 11 years to pay off 2 credit cards, and I'm still petrified to go into CC debt again. Will Ready for Zero also eventually offer planning tools for saving up for a big ticket item like a new MacBook Air s…

Today, RFZ is a do it yourself type of tool. So it is a different option altogether than debt consolidation but we did recently announce a partnership with Lending Club that allows us to consolidate people's high interest debts when and if it makes sense (not always the best option).

Planning tools are definitely in the works. We do help you understand the 'true cost' of items purchased on your credit cards; the interest and fees can be sneaky.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#10
post #4

I love this idea, but I've been getting "We're sorry, our server is under heavy load. Please try again." during the verify phase for the last few days.

I just got a beta code the other day after signing up months ago. Must be another marketing push.
Post reply on HN