Izzibeth

Uhm. No. Paying off credit cards is not easy.
I personally pay over $350 a month in student loans. I also have a car which I pay $250 a month in insurance and car payments (luckily only 6 months left on car payments). When I had an apartment I was paying $450 a month in rent for a studio. Another $150 for cell phone and gas/electric. Let's be conservative and say $100 a month in food and gas (I didn't eat much when I was single). Plus I was going to school. That's over $1,000 in general expenses. Now if we factor in the $300 I spent last month on new tires.... I had to replace my windshield to pass inspection two years ago. $175. I had to get new brakes $300.

This is real life. Things happen that you have no control over and not everyone (especially not people making just above minimum wage) has a chance to pay off credit cards. Not everyone has the opportunity to do what this guy did in your story. Many people have other responsibilities and other people to take care of whether it be their own children, siblings, parents, or whomever.

Not "anyone" can do that, sorry. It is a great story and good for him but people struggle. People buy groceries with their credit cards (like I do... although I do it in such a way that I pay off the card every week). Some people ESPECIALLY NOW are buying gas with their cards.

I hate to see people make this into a trivial thing. It's not. If it were then sooooo many people would not be in trouble. Our economy would not be in trouble. Credit card companies deliberately go after people who they know can never pay them back. Because they constantly get money from them. They keep them in debt for life.

Here's a story for you:

A few years ago when I first got my credit card, I decided to take money out of it like a debit card. I took $80. When I tried to pay off that amount a week or two later, I couldn't.

I called up the company to find out how to pay off the $80 debit I took (because the interest was 24%). "Oh, I'm sorry. I wish you had called before you did that. See... in the fine print it explains that you have to pay off your card completely in order to pay off that money." So what did that mean? That meant that for the past three years I have been paying 24% on $80 that I couldn't pay off unless I paid off the whole card (which happened to be impossible for me to do because I got a wonderful surprise from a family member which caused me to owe $2k to my university... I won't go into detail other than to say it was not my fault at all). I am finally, thanks to my tax return, able to pay off my card in full but at this point in time, after all of the interest... I have ended at paying 24% on over $200. From $80 to $200.

Now, I'm not going to say it wasn't my fault for not reading the fine print (wherever in the document it happened to lie). However, stuff like that shouldn't be in fine print. Stuff like that can break someone. It should have been explained right away. But that is how they get you. Little things that can completely ruin you. And again, they do it on purpose. The only reason why I was able to pay off this card was because I moved in with my boyfriend's family and we don't have to pay rent. Not everyone is so lucky.

__________________

sigma9

if you have a job there is almost no reason to be in debt.. now i can understand min wage workers a bit but alot of the debt is carried by higher wage workers...
reg job
$5.15/hour * 40 hours a week = $206
after taxes about $160 a week
parttime job on weekends/ night/ etc
$5.15/hour * 20 hours a week = $103
after taxes about $80a week
total in 1 week is 150+80= $230 per week

230 X 52 weeks a year = $11960
11960/ 12 months a year = 996
$996 dollars a month in income give or take a bit. i used 20% to taxes. and use prices from the midwest where im from.
yes i know nyc and california cost more. but u have busses and subways..

here we go

450 place to live
150 car/gas/insurance
100 food
100 gas/electic/etc
40 cell phone
------
800 total bill per month....

thats 196 to spare.. sure a few thing here and there will cost a bit more so lets say an extra 100

that 96 left to spare

and there is even more money to be saved in my example
food instand noodles cost 10 cent per pack
spagetti/ and sauce 1.25 for spagetti 3 for sauce makes 3 meals easy that total 4.25/ 3 meals = 1.42 per meal.



car gas for my acura is $35 per tank i get 30 mpg and its an old car 1992

1 tank last me 2 weeks about ( i dont go anywhere) and my insurance is $300/6 months(safe driver dont speed etc)


so i would have 100-200 per moths left...

that goes to paying off debt. and a lil to save if you can..




and this is if you live alone.. get a room mate and cost per month goes way down..




i read in your post you are paying off student loans... i hate to say thing because damn you own alot huh..
i went to community collage and got scolarships to pay most of the bill along with financial aid..


btw thats how i use to live.. now i dont even really look at prices anymore..
good job at a good company FTW!! they pay my rent/cell phone/gas for the car/utilities/and give me 1k a month for food...

Izzibeth

Add a child to that equation and then tell me how easy it is to pay off credit cards.

And I don't owe that much. Only $32,000. total in student loans. But they fuck you with interest. I know someone who owes $100,000.00 for student loans because he went to a better college out of state. He is a graduate student now so he doesn't have to worry about paying it back yet... but he will.

Anyway, trivializing credit card debt is a waste of time. It is a real problem and every day people are effected by it tremendously. Sometimes it isn't their fault (like my personal example) and it is definitely not easy to get out of debt. $96 a month is not enough to live on for single people (I could wipe that out in birth control, tampons, pads, toilet paper, or even a furniture payment without any problems) and it is impossible to live on if you have a child.

__________________

sigma9

More UAW workers bankrupt - 09/18/05

its becasue of ppl who act like this that debt is so high and yes 96 is not alot to live on but i just used it to show that even on min wage you wont starve.. debt comes from spending more than what you have.. and yes for some is not easy to get out of debt.. but you also have to say alot of those in debt shouldnt even be in debt. because they dont make min wage. even a job at walmart pays more than min wage.. there are alot of jobs that you can make more than min wage. even mcdonalds pays its employees more that that.. my local mcdonalds pays like 7-8 and hour..

in the link i posted they freaken guy made 100k a yr