Australian Financial Solutions

Overconsumption of Credit

April 14, 2010

We have been told for years that we are a Nation of over-consumers.  Too much fatty food, too much binge drinking, too much energy/petrol/fossil fuels and too much credit?

Yes, that’s right, too much credit.  It’s about time that we realised that our amount of credit card and other unsecured debt is just as damaging to our health as cigarettes and alcohol.  The associated stress and worry of interest and repayments are taxing on the readily employed with a reasonable income, not to mention to effects our out-of-control spending has on those recently affected by the GFC. To those Australians who find themselves now unable to meet their credit commitments, this is very much the overconsumption of credit.

It’s all too easy to point the finger at the over-eager banks and lenders for wanting us to spend the money.  We are, after all, asking for the money ourselves and then happily trotting off to spend it.  We must take responsibility for our actions and our over-consumption.

The problem is… what if you can’t?  Many ‘under-employed’ people have lost their well-paying jobs and now find themselves working in whatever capacity they can to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.  The reduced income however, does not stretch as far as pDebtaying all those loans and credit cards.

“There are other options out there’” Natalie Levett of Australian Financial Solutionsis quick to point out, “Most people just aren’t aware that there are alternatives which sit between ‘all OK’ and the last resort of bankruptcy”.

Filed under: Debt

Tags: credit, Debt, repayments