Book Review: 'Deal With Your Debt'
Most personal financial books I read over-promise and under-deliver, so as I started reading Liz Pulliam Weston's new book Deal With Your Debt: The Right Way to Manage Your Bills and Pay Off What You Owe, I was expecting the same. Instead, I found an extremely balanced look at debt with sound steps to get rid of it. Anyone who is currently carrying any type of debt will come away with all they need to get any debt they have under control.
I especially like that Weston doesn't fall into the often seen over-hyping that everyone in America is running around with $9000 credit card balances:
Carrying credit card debt is not the norm in America, despite what we’re frequently told.
Most Americans owe nothing to credit card companies, according to detailed figures compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank in its Survey of Consumer Finances. One quarter of US households don’t have any cards at all, and another 30% or so regularly pay off their balance in full.
Of the households that did carry a balance, the median amount owed was $1,900. That means half of the households with a balance owed more, and half owed less.
Knowing that half of those with credit cards balances have less than $1,900 shows that the $9,000 average that is so often quoted is quite misleading. That isn't to say she thinks everything is rosy, but it does show that she is shooting a straight arrow and not trying to sell some debt reduction plan by using statistics to make things sound worse than they really are.
Weston does the same with housing:
If you bought a house for $35,000 in 1970 and sold it in 2000 for $200,000, for example, you may think you've earned a whopping gain. In reality, you've only outpaced inflation by 1 percentage point a year, plus you may have paid out more than $100,000 along the way in repairs, maintenance and improvements...
By taking a balanced view on subjects like these where the data is so often skewed in one direction or the other, Weston provides a solid base of financial information -- then continues it with common sense and balanced strategies to reduce debt. If you find that you need advice about your current debts, this book will give you a solid foundation in which to begin tackling your debt and that is exactly what anyone with debt needs.
Comments
I've often wondered who all these people owing all this money are because most of my friends at work, church, and in the neighborhood SWEAR that they don't have CC debt or that it's low (under $1500). Personally, mine are paid off every month. I use CC for the convenience and rewards, but they are paid off.
Hosting Carnival of Debt Reduction #28
This week’s Carnival of Debt Reduction is hosted at PF Advice. PF Advice has taken to a strict, no-monkey-business, Debt Reduction only post for the carnival, and I’ll be hosting it next week where I’ll inherit the rules, so please se...