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How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

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Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#101

Post by Helianthus16 »

Qz wrote: post #96
updog wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, you are clearly speaking from a position of privilege on that one. How the hell do you hold back 6-12 months salary when you can barely afford the rent, utility bills and the costs of raising some kids to begin with? Haha, just hold back 6 months salary! You make it sound so easy! It's not that they didn't prepare, it's that many of them have no means to prepare, and barely have the means to continue as is. Many…

If you're willing to move, and live with roommates, it's fairly easy to live comfortably (assuming no children) on 12k/year total. Assuming you're making minimum wage-ish, that's 8k to put in the bank every year.

yeah, what? that's a lot of assumptions. people don't live with assumptions, they live with the realities of having a kid or a spouse or a family or even a girl they just can't get over.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#102

Post by Helianthus16 »

hartror wrote: post #90
mkr-hn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting yourself in heavy debt to make sure your kids have a good shot is not difficult to defend. It's not something I'd do, but I have a hard time blaming someone for making that sacrifice.

I truely don't buy into the whole "good school" thing as being overwealmingly important for a child's future happiness and success. Though this is based on my own personal experience rather than solid data. Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended. I think the main factors to my economic success was be…

You don't know how bad schools can be.

>Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended.

But would those factors be the same at a different school? I'm going to commit a minor sin and say a statistic without a citation; the average ACT score among teachers in Chicago was 19 a few years back.

You say you went to a shit hole high school, in which case you really _should_ have a sense of perspective on the whole thing. If your school was a shitty as you say, you must have been near the very, very top of your class (not in class rank but in overall success). That's a huge distribution of people who are _not you_, who went on to more desperate lives.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#103

Post by Cadsby »

rick888 wrote: post #81
thompo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'I'm sure you're up there with those who think that people who owe large sums of money should "just work harder" or "lay off alcohol and cigs".' You say I'm "up there" like I'm some sort of snooty asshole for working my face off for six months to pay off my debt. I have my vices (I love you, Mary Jane) and I still managed to afford them so make whatever assumptions you will about me, I just found it more gratifying t…

I was 25K in credit card debt when I got out of school. I moved back in with my parents and pretty much didn't do anything outside of working and sleeping for a year, and paid it off I am still debt free (this was 5 years ago). It takes self control and discipline, which most people don't have.

It's easy to be judgmental. What would you have done if you didn't have parents to mooch off of for a year? What if you had a family to support?

It's easy to tell yourself you succeeded all due to "self control" and "discipline". But the truth is like many judgmental types, you had considerable practical/emotional support as well.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#104

Post by geuis »

lionhearted wrote: post #98
geuis wrote: post #22

So my question is what about people that aren't in debt, but need help improving their credit score? I had a lot of debt from about 5-10 years ago and it killed my credit score. The debt has all been paid off for a few years, I haven't had credit cards in years, and I still have a few notices from closed accounts that won't fall off for a few years. So I'm currently doing what I can to remove the closed notices and h…

Go to your bank and ask about a secured loan. Basically, you put money in a CD and get 2% or whatever. The CD sits at the bank. You then get a loan for the same amount as the CD at 3% or so. They've got your money in the bank, so it's no risk for them. You put the loan on auto-pay, you lose 1% per year to do this, but you get 12 of these kinds of transaction credits on your account which is good because they count di…

I've also heard this before but wasn't sure about the details. Thanks for stating this.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#105

Post by nostrademons »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #102
hartror wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truely don't buy into the whole "good school" thing as being overwealmingly important for a child's future happiness and success. Though this is based on my own personal experience rather than solid data. Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended. I think the main factors to my economic success was be…

You don't know how bad schools can be. >Certainly in my childhood and young adult life there were a number of factors to my success or lack of it that had nothing to do with which school I attended. But would those factors be the same at a different school? I'm going to commit a minor sin and say a statistic without a citation; the average ACT score among teachers in Chicago was 19 a few years back. You say you went…

Is the debate here about poverty or is it about debt?

Money is just the messenger in the economy - it transmits information to you about what roles might or might not be valuable, and from you as to what goods and services you would like to consume. It's not hard to stay out of debt - you simply have to heed the message that money is transmitting to you.

Poverty is a wider question, and includes whether or not it is fair & just that some people have to make the sacrifices needed to stay out of debt. When I say that you can simply choose not to send your kids to college to avoid taking on crippling student loan debt, that is a 100% factually true statement. When you then say "But one shouldn't have to forgo an education to avoid going into debt", that's a normative statement. It's one that I'd probably even agree with you on, but it's a much broader conversation with no clear answers about how to fix it or even what the problem definition is.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#106

Post by nostrademons »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #100
nostrademons wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember a study on general aviation plane crashes. They found that very few plane crashes came about because the pilot made a single, obvious mistake. Instead, the common pattern was a series of missteps, each so small that you couldn't properly call it a "mistake" in and of itself, the pilot was just cutting corners on the recommended safety margin. And then something happened that was out of the pilot's control,…

In that story, the "irresponsible" part is that they took a gamble in order for their kids to grow up in a better neighborhood, and lost. Sounds like a somewhat calculated risk rather than irresonsibility to me. also everything people have said about your position of privilege

If it's a calculated risk, why is this a problem that needs a YC startup to fix, rather than simply a risk that didn't work out?

There're certainly people that take on debt as a calculated risk because they believe it'll pay off in the future. My parents did that to send me to college, and it did pay off. But when it fails, they usually just go "Well, shit," and fall back on their contingency plans for how to handle it if it fails. If it's a calculated risk, they've been making those plans, right?

But the fact that there's a startup out there to solve this problem (several, actually, but this one seems more above-board than the alternatives on the radio) indicates that this wasn't a calculated risk for many people. The essence of a calculated risk is that you go into it having done all the due diligence you need to weigh the possible consequences, and then make your calculations based on that. What's there for this startup to sell if people have already done that?

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#107

Post by nostrademons »

whatusername wrote: post #82
joubert wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent wrote: "They did it because they overextended themselves to get a house in a good school district and then one of them lost their job or they had a medical emergency." So, they overextended themselves and THEN lost a job or had a medical emergency. The problem is people choose to live on the edge financially, which I think is irresponsible, especially if you have others who depend on you for their life.

From an outsiders perspective of the US --- If you have a $200K medical emergency -- I'm not sure how you prepare yourself for that...

Health insurance, but the problem is that pre-existing condition clauses can prevent you from getting insurance coverage at any cost.

The other alternative is simply "die", but rationally, there's little reason to choose that over bankruptcy. I wonder what happens to medical debts if you commit suicide over them... (Or what happens if you try to commit suicide and fail?)

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#108

Post by rick888 »

Cadsby wrote: post #103
rick888 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was 25K in credit card debt when I got out of school. I moved back in with my parents and pretty much didn't do anything outside of working and sleeping for a year, and paid it off I am still debt free (this was 5 years ago). It takes self control and discipline, which most people don't have.

It's easy to be judgmental. What would you have done if you didn't have parents to mooch off of for a year? What if you had a family to support? It's easy to tell yourself you succeeded all due to "self control" and "discipline". But the truth is like many judgmental types, you had considerable practical/emotional support as well.

"It's easy to be judgmental. What would you have done if you didn't have parents to mooch off of for a year? What if you had a family to support?"

The thing is, If I have a family, it means I'm already making enough to support them. This is the self-control and discipline I was talking about. Too many people decide to have kids and don't do anything to prepare (IE: save money, etc).

If I didn't have family, I would still be fine. I would have gotten a cheap apartment and paid it off in two years.

"But the truth is like many judgmental types, you had considerable practical/emotional support as well."

Really? I didn't know "judgmental types" and "practical/emotional support" went hand-in-hand.

This is why unsuccessful people stay unsuccessful. They pass good advice off as "judgmental".

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#109

Post by ramchip »

nostrademons wrote: post #92
ramchip wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The responsible thing to do there is to just say no. Or just go to a college that doesn't charge $200k in fees?

That works too, if there are any left. Actually, a bunch of top colleges will give you a full ride if you're under a certain income, so if you get one of those packages, take it.

Well, I'm in Quebec, so a BEng at a very good university like McGill costs less than $4k a year, all fees and insurance included. Granted, the US appears to be more expensive.

Re: How Americans Get Out of Credit Card Debt

#110

Post by jerf »

Cadsby wrote: post #103
rick888 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was 25K in credit card debt when I got out of school. I moved back in with my parents and pretty much didn't do anything outside of working and sleeping for a year, and paid it off I am still debt free (this was 5 years ago). It takes self control and discipline, which most people don't have.

It's easy to be judgmental. What would you have done if you didn't have parents to mooch off of for a year? What if you had a family to support? It's easy to tell yourself you succeeded all due to "self control" and "discipline". But the truth is like many judgmental types, you had considerable practical/emotional support as well.

"What would you have done if you didn't have parents to mooch off of for a year? What if you had a family to support?"

What if a cow comes stomping into your front room and demands that you feed her shredded hundred dollar bills until she's full enough to tap dance her way to victory in the upcoming school competition?

Hypothetical aren't arguments, they're just anchorless questions. You have to look around yourself, figure out what to do, and do it. It may take extreme measures and you may encounter setbacks, but you can't let hypotheticals stop you. What do you have, right now? You don't have to worry about the hypothetical things happening to other people. How can you leverage it? Can you move somewhere that has more stuff? Do you need to declare bankruptcy? Do you need to find a private charity to help you out? Sometimes drastic action is called for.

Very few of us are handed life on a silver platter, and a goodly number of those people get the silver platter yanked at some time during their life. We all got problems. Solve them to the best of your abilities, or don't. I'm not guaranteeing success, because nobody's guaranteed success, but if you just give up on self control and discipline you're guaranteeing failure.

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