 With the struggling economy, many people are finding themselves deep in credit card debt. Therefore, consumers are forced to turn to debt consolidation in order to get control of their finances. However, before a person decides to consolidate their credit card debt, they need to be aware of the credit... |
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Living with debt is by no means easy. There’s the constant concern of living paycheck to paycheck and the never ending issue of covering monthly bills and living expenses. While most of us pride ourselves on being self-sufficient, it’s hard to ignore that we all sometimes live well beyond our means.... |
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| Arizona |
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In October 2005 the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention & Consumer Protection Act officially went into effect. Since then, the number of bankruptcy filings in Arizona has dropped dramatically (scroll down to see the numbers). The biggest reason for these changes lies in the fact that not only are consumers less willing to suffer the same long-term credit effect, but fewer are able to qualify in light of the new bankruptcy laws. Due to the changes, a person whose income exceeds the median in their state must first pass the means test in order to qualify. Listed below are the median income figures for Arizona: 2-person families: 51,681 3-person families: 58,127 4-person families: 65,050 5-person families: 56,336 6-person families: 53,513 7-or-more-person families: 53,887 The means test is basically an examination of your income and expenses to determine whether you can reasonably afford to pay back at least part of the debt. More importantly, your expenses are not your actual expenses. Instead they are based on state, county, and federal averages, so if you are overspending on anything, you can’t expect too much mercy from the courts. For this reason and many others, many people in the state have begun turning to debt management firms to lower their debt payments and help them become debt free much faster. Recent Arizona Bankruptcy Figures 2004: 30,907 2005: 39,689 2006: 7,532 Arizona felt the effects of the bankruptcy law changes as validated by the considerable drop offs in filings from 2005 to 2006. The number of personal bankruptcy filings declined by more than 80 percent between these two years in Arizona, which is far above the national average. There is a wide array of reasons for this. The primary cause of the reduction in the number of people filing bankruptcy has to do with the fact that more consumers are being forced into Chapter 13 “payment plan” or reorganization bankruptcies, instead of the preferred Chapter 7. To learn more about Arizona credit & debt topics, visit these pages: Arizona Consumer Credit Counseling Services Arizona Debt Collection Arizona Bankruptcy Laws |
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Credit is a useful tool and when handled responsibly allows us to obtain credit cards, loans for homes, cars and other big ticket items. The better we handle our credit, the better the terms that are offered to us from lenders including higher credit lines and lower interest rates.
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