|
On average, Americans with credit card debts already individually owe $15,000 and, even if they cut up all their cards today and never get another, can take years to pay them off. Not counting impulse purchases, many of us still owe a lot on mortgages that we really cannot afford. Often too, we drive expensive or large, powerful vehicles that we are paying on monthly via both big car loans and filling the gas-guzzlers' tanks.
Not infrequently, we do not even know how we got into such fixes. The causes vary, but typically boil down to loss of work and/or uncontrolled expenditures. Until the bursting of the housing bubble brought a dose of reality, for decades we have as a nation tended to go on spending binges as if we were multi-millionaires, despite actually having only middle-class or even poverty level incomes.
A solution that is becoming more common today is financial coaching. If making ends meet is a frequent challenge for you, there is good news: quality money management help can be obtained for free. In her 6/23/2010 article, "Find a Personal Money Coach, Free," MSN Money writer Donna Freedman tells us in detail the advantages money coaches have over financial counselors or consultants for folks over their heads in debt, real life examples of persons who have gotten their financial houses in order through help from financial coaching, differences between categories of monetary assistance, how to gracefully turn down people who keep asking for money when one's own budget is not in great shape, tips on overcoming compulsive spending habits, and specific information on how to find one's own money coach, with links to helpful agencies that provide these valuable services for free.
| |