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The amount of outstanding student loan debt has passed the amount of outstanding credit card debt – $829.785 billion versus $826.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal says these figures are from the Federal Reserve and online financial aid guides FinAid.org and FastWeb.com. The story suggests that people are paying off their credit card debt. But it could also be due to the increased amount of credit card debt that’s being written off.

Student loan debt could also be higher because it’s more difficult to bankrupt student loans. FastWeb.com says that only 29 of of the 2,880 borrowers who tried to bankrupt student loans had all or part of their student loans discharged in bankruptcy in 2008.

There are two bills sitting in Congress that would impact your ability to bankrupt your private student loans. The Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2010, H.R. 5043, and the Fairness for Struggling Students Act, S. 3219, would allow some private student loans to be bankrupted. Federal student loans would still be non-dischargeable. Write your Congressman if you want to see these laws passed.

Tags: Card Debt, Credit Card, Credit Card Debt, Debt

Paying off debt is one of those things on most people’s to-do list, like doing taxes or mowing the lawn, that is painlessly easy to slack off on. But unlike other responsibilities you put on the back burner, procrastinating on paying off your debt will cost you time and money—and add up to a big chunk of it.

Thanks to the CARD Act, issuers are required to disclose on your credit statement how long it would take to pay off your entire balance if you pay only the minimum. Those numbers may be a real wake-up call to how much debt you’re carrying and for how long, but still hides the worst consequence of the amount of interest you end up paying over time.

Do the math and see the kind of damage your debt is doing.

Let’s say you’re carrying $7,701* on a credit card with a typical 17% APR. If you calculate the card’s minimum payment as 3% of your balance (standard minimum payment calculation), and you only pay minimum, then you’re looking at

$231.03 a month for 18 years and 1 month until the debt is paid off in full, paying an additional $6.624.47 in interest charges.

The a

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Tags: Debt, Debt Now

You have a stack of bills in front of you and you may not be able to pay them all. Which debts are the most important? Many people make the mistake of paying their credit cards before their other debts. I argue that credit cards fall very low on the list of debt priorities, especially if you have a mortgage and auto loan. Learn why your mortgage should top your list of debt obligations: How to Prioritize Your Debt Payments

Tags: Debt, Prioritizing Debt

Do you ever toy with the idea of paying off your credit card debt slowly rather than paying your balance off in full? It can be appealing. After all, someone’s giving you what feels like free money to go out and buy what you want right now even if you can’t afford it right now. As long as you make minimum payments each month, they’ll be happy and all will be right with the world, right? Not quite.

Have you ever really thought about how much your credit card debt would actually cost if you paid it off slowly? How long it could take might surprise you. The amount of interest you’ll pay over time could downright shock you. Don’t give the credit card companies the upper hand. Before deciding to settle into long-term credit card debt, consider the following question:

Is any purchase worth a lifetime of debt?

A lifetime of debt could be precisely what you’re in for if you pay only your minimum payments on your credit card debt. While you can certainly minimise the damage by paying more of your debt off each month, let’s take a look at a worst-case scenario and what different current debt levels could actually cost you before they’re paid off.

In this example, let’s pretend you have a credit card that charges 17.99% interest on purchases, like the Woolworths Everyday Money card. Because you’re ca

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Tags: Card Debt, Credit Card, Credit Card Debt, Debt