Debt consolidation loan * credit card arrears * mortgage problems * cheap finance * debt advice * stop repossession * debt consolidation loan * bankruptcy help

Once you have credit card arrears the interest and charges soon start to mount up and serious debt problems occur. Debt consolidation loans can be a solution to reduce outgoings and stop house repossession or avoid bankruptcy. Debt counsellors can often give advice about how to obtain cheap finance for a debt consolidation loan.

Start of article about debt problems

Of course, the danger of strolling round a pleasant indoor shopping mall all day, pausing only occasionally to sip an overpriced coffee, is that retail temptation is all around you. You may only have gone out to meet friends or to buy one or two (genuinely) essential items. But before you know it, there in the shop window is that pair of shoes that you simply have to have, or the MP3 player that is just that bit nicer than the one you bought six months ago, or the shirt that's going to be make you irresistible to women.

What do you do? Do you do what our parents' generation would have done - i.e. look in your purse or wallet and see if you have enough cash to buy the shoes/MP3 player/shirt? Of course not! You just get out your credit card and rush in to get your must-have purchase. And perhaps as you walk to the till you spot something else which is quite nice. Well, it's all going on the plastic, so you pick that up too. It's all so easy - no counting out cash, and no interrupting your shopping to go and get cash out from the bank.

It's the same at the supermarket when people are doing their weekly food shop. Talk to a lot of older people who remember life before credit cards and you'll find that they generally have a pretty good idea of what their shopping is going to cost before the cashier has scanned it through the till.

Why? Because in the days before plastic cards, regardless of how well off you were, you needed to add up the price of everything in your trolley as you went round the supermarket in order to avoid the embarrassment of not having enough cash when you got to the checkout. Nowadays, we can just pile up our trolleys and use our flexible friend when we get to the checkout.

That's one of the reasons why shops are happy to take credit card payments, even though they have to pay a percentage of each transaction to the credit card companies. The fact is that by accepting credit cards, the retailer knows he will get more people willing to make impulse purchases or buy something slightly more expensive than what they came into the shop for. The credit card companies even point this out to retailers in their merchant handbooks and other marketing material.

Are we weak-willed and gullible, allowing ourselves to fall into these traps? Deep down, we know what will happen. A few weeks after that impulse buy, the credit card bill will arrive. If you didn't have the money when you bought that new shirt that you didn't need, then you probably don't have the money now either. So, you make the £5 minimum payment instead. Repeat this month on month, incur some late payment fees a couple of times when you forget to pay the minimum in time, and before you know it that £50 shirt has cost you over £100.

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