Getting Out of Debt

What Every Family Must Know
Diana Blaisdale is very familiar with that sinking feeling that comes with having too much credit card debt. For many years, she and her husband followed a pattern that many Americans know all too well: They charged loads of expensive gifts in December and then faced a pile of debt in January and February, which they couldn’t finish paying off until the summer. Blaisdale finally put a stop to the cycle a few years ago when she and her overspending husband divorced.






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“Not having too much debt has greatly decreased the stress in our lives. And we have so much more time,” says Blaisdale, a mother of two who says she has a deeply ingrained fear of financial ruin. Her ex-husband, however, continued to charge up his credit cards, finally owing more than $50,000. Eventually, he turned his affairs over to a non-profit credit counseling agency, which negotiated down his debts and consolidated the payments so that he was able to avoid declaring bankruptcy.


Sound Familiar?
More Americans than ever are in the same boat as Blaisdale’s ex. Only about half of U.S. households don’t carry a balance on their credit cards – 40 percent to 50 percent are credit-card debt free, according to Steve Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) in Washington, D.C. The other half of the 104 million U.S. households, however, owe $10,000 on average, according to Brobeck.

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