Welcome to Debt Advice Trust Blog

'Credit cards are a necessary evil', apparently so! If latest figures are to be believed we simply cannot live without our store cards. UK personal debt stood at £1,325bn at the end of April 2007, with £54.0bn of that solely on credit cards. We are spending like there is no tomorrow! We don't care about our incurred debts, we shun debt advice and we look like we are becoming a nation of bankruptcy “victims”!

There are no victims here, I said! Yet it was pointed out to me that maybe we are less to blame for our savage spending as we first thought!

With more credit cards then people in this country I am beginning to see the point. How can one legitimately reject such a wonderful thing as a credit card when they are everywhere? The average holder has 2.2 credit cards and a hell blazing desire to be in debt, well maybe the last bit isn't so true but you get my gist! With all these credit cards, I got to thinking about how can we need or want so many? I couldn't believe our generation had suddenly become so completely dependently consumerist, maybe something else was at work when looking at the amount of people who need debt advice and more scarily, the amount of people who declare bankruptcy!

You’re in serious debt. You scrimp here, you save a penny there and you’re still not seeing the difference? Where could you be going wrong? Here’s the four big mistakes people make when attempting to budget which leave them with more debt:

1. Paying the wrong bills
   When you’ve got bills coming out of your ears – which one do you pay first? When it comes to debt we can divide them into two categories: priority and non-priority. Priority debts are the ones that have serious consequences like losing your home or going to prison if they don’t get paid and include mortgage, rent, parking fines and council tax. Non-priority includes things like unsecured loans and phone bills.
2. Scrimping on the wrong things
   Have you found yourself skipping things like getting that strange noise coming from your car looked at or getting a constantly dripping tap fixed? Bad idea. Before you scrimp on anything, ask yourself if it’s something that may cost you more money down the track to get fixed or potentially dangerous if you leave it.
3. Opening up new credit cards
   Despite being in debt, many people continue to open credit card accounts – lured in by the illusion of lower rates and fees. Another credit card wont help pay your debt. Cutting up your credit cards and stopping unnecessary purchase will though.
4. Getting sucked in by a quick fix