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Money in the News: When Reducing Debt

No Credit Needed posts about their basic debt reduction plan. Makes sense to us!

Reducing debt only requires three things – a plan, determination, and money.

Free From Broke posts about how half of American’s are financially fragile.

According to the article 46.5% of all respondents are living very close to the financial edge—in other words, nearly half of America. And it’s one of the worst rates in the world—in Italy for example, the rate is only 20%. But it gets even worse; an additional 25.1% of U.S. respondents answered that they were “probably able” to come up with $2,000—meaning that they aren’t entirely sure.

Science Daily posts about a study that says young adults actually feel more empowered with debt.

Researchers found that the more credit card and college loan debt held by young adults aged 18 to 27, the higher their self-esteem and the more they felt like they were in control of their lives. The effect was strongest among those in the lowest economic class.

I can’t even fathom that.

Free Money Finance posts about the little expenses that can add up.

Yes, little expenses can add up over time. Many people would say to forget about little expenses and focus only on big expenses — if you handle the large ones, the others will take care of themselves. I say you need to address both big and small expenses because it all adds up.

This is one of the things I always talked about in my Personal Finance class, because this is one of the more crucial things that woke me up. I started keeping track and noticed how much I was really spending on little unnecessary expenses. Try it yourself, you’ll be surprised.

Wallet Pop posts about 5 surprising things you may not know are hurting your credit score.

In any event, after I made the mistake of using my debit card to pay for my Avis car rental, the next day I received an email alert from my credit monitoring service. It notified me that there was an “inquiry” on my credit report from Avis and that my FICO credit score had dropped by 14 points. Needless to say, I’ve never used a debit card at a car rental company since.

About Crystal Groves, Google+

Crystal Groves is a farmer, web developer, musician, blogger, and personal finance enthusiast from the back hills of Maryland and Pennsylvania. She started Money Drain as a project to encourage people interested in fixing their financial situation to share their stories and learn from the stories of others. We all make mistakes, but in order to change we have to make changes.

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