Just to get everyone in a festive Christmas spirit allow me to offer, this cautionary tale of Christmas Debt.
The 12 Days of Christmas DEBT
12 Months of Agonizing Payments
Have you paid off last Christmas yet? How about the one before that?
11 Maxed Out Credit Cards
How much room do you have on those cards? Really?
10 Overdrafts a leaping
Really, how much are you paying in overdraft fees? Just because your bank balance can show a negative value, doesn’t mean it should always be that way!
9 Minimum Payments
You realize you will pay that off in 20 years with those minimum payments, or possibly 50 years? Minimum payments simply forestall the inevitable.
8 Balance Transfers
Shuttling debt from one credit card to another is not solving the problem. Juggling chainsaws will lead to a messy end, and that is what this is.
7 Cashed in Emergency Funds
Christmas debt is an emergency? Don’t think that is the emergency you were planning for.
6 Pay Day Loans
This could be starting a death spiral in your finances that will lead you to Day (3)
5 Gold Reclamations!
Did your Grandmother leave you that ring to help you cash it in for pennies on the dollar to pay off debt?
4 Calling Collection Agencies
These are not the bogus ones you get emails from, these are the real ones
3 Calls to insolvency trustees
They can help, but you can’t keep doing this every year either.
2 Calls to your family for an emergency loan
You do have to pay those back, you realize?
1 Mortgage Refinance
Using the equity in your house to pay for consumer debt is a very bad thing.
Yes, not very festive, but ultimately a bit too true. I go to Church and I am confident the Christmas season is not designed to bankrupt you. It is at time to get together with family and friends.
Wonder why you dislike this time of season? How many of the Days of Debt on the list are you facing in January?