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Tag: credit cards

What are the best ways to cut down credit card debt?

      Best ways? Plural? Is there some suggestion that there’s more than one way? Because there isn’t. There is only one way to cut your nasty, insidious, credit card debt. Sorry guys, but it’s called “willpower”. You just need some to draw on. Credit cards, used incorrectly, are cancers on your finances. They […]

Online shopping is booming, but what are the risks of buying financial products online?

Little known fact: I was the first ever victim of internet credit card fraud in Australia! Okay, not the first. But it was last century, which made it pretty early in the history of cyber crime. And it scared me off online purchasing for years. It was 1998 and I’d never bought anything over the […]

School’s almost out. What can your generation teach school leavers about money?

Demographer Bernard Salt says Generation X changed the concept of growing up. Xers believed age 18, even 21, was too early to become an adult. “Can we delay the whole responsibility thing for a while …” Maybe not as long as Charlie Sheen’s character in Two and a Half Men (and hey, with Charlie in […]

Deciding when to shop online … and off

Next time you order in a pizza, put a big dollop of ice cream in the centre. Let it melt, then eat. Bad combination? Right, now you get Debt Man and shopping. If you ever see me in a retail environment – anything except a restaurant, pub, or bottle shop – do not approach or […]

What are some of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to paying off their debts?

Not all debt is the devil. There are actually three kinds of debt: “dumb”; “okay”; and “great” debt. To categorise them, you need to ask two questions. One: Will the purchase increase in value? Two: Is the interest tax deductible? Dumb debt answers “no” to both. These assets fall in value and the interest is […]