FINANCIAL HOUSEKEEPING | What it takes to pay off credit cards
With the average household credit card debt standing north of $9,000, many consumers have gotten to a point where they feel like they will never get out of the debt hole they have created.
The first step involves knowing what it will take, and creating a plan and a time frame for getting out of debt.
At CardRatings.com, the “What will it take to pay off my credit card?” calculator is a big stride in the right direction. Armed with your outstanding debt and interest rates on those cards, you can see how much you would need to pay to get rid of the debt in a certain amount of time, or you can see how different payments will allow you to dump the debt over a set period of time.
You can get straight to the calculator at www.cardratings.com/creditcarddebtcalc.html.
SHORT COURSE | Earnest money
Prospective homebuyers who want to show they are serious about purchasing a property will put up a good-faith sum of money. This “earnest money” becomes a part of the buyer’s down payment if the offer is accepted, and is returned to the would-be purchaser if the deal is rejected. The money is forfeited if the buyer pulls out of the deal.
In many cases, the earnest money represents all of the buyer’s down payment, but a prospective buyer who plans to use a lot of his or her own cash to seal the deal will risk only a small percentage of that money as a good-faith deposit.
