The tidal wave of consumer debt accumulating from unchecked personal credit card debt threatens to overwhelm our nation even as the lenders themselves reap the benefits. Americans have grown addicted to spending without care for their own income and budgets are something our grandparents used to employ. As a nation, we have almost lost track of the notion of saving for the future – aside, of course, from the exceedingly wealthy who no longer bother with banks within the United States – and our economy suffers as a result. More to the point, our citizens suffer as well from the drop in property values and rise in unemployment that are direct results of the consumer debt explosion. Credit card bills are killing this country, and it is past time that we do something about it.

It is more than understandable how this all happened. Just turn on the television: every other commercial advertises either the untold benefits from plastic purchasing (The sheen! The class climbing! The convenience!) or the consumer credit counseling surgical practicalities (The desperation! The condescension! The oh so marketable convenience!). Somehow, along the way, the average American household managed to rack up around eight thousand dollars in unsecured debt almost wholly from credit card usage. The past decade, as home appraisals skyrocketed and well paying jobs could be plucked from the vine, there was not much reason to worry. This was the American millennium, after all, and things would never change.

Somehow, an unprecedented period of economic expansion came to an end, and the real estate bubble finally burst. And, more to the point, a good number of borrowers found that they were having trouble making even the minimum payments upon their various credit cards. Who knew? The tyranny of unsecured debt has at last seeped into the household accounts of most of our citizenry and the effects are everywhere. Beyond the new budgeting, though, and the tightening of belts, families need to take a close and educated look at their credit card problems and see what can be done. There are a number of debt managements solutions that have arisen in the past few years purely to deal with such situations although the simplest debt relief is the most annoying: a halt to purchases. Serious attention paid to expenses and savings accounts are the foundation of any lasting credit card debt relief.

Above all else, families must stop spending without regard to  become a credit card processor the future. Heads of household should collect all credit cards and, while not necessarily setting them aflame, at least keep them tightly locked away from the grasp of misguided purchases. One of the greatest problems facing consumers is this culture of commercialism. Credit cards really are an addiction, and otherwise ordinary people will find themselves driven to buy something they do not really want simply because they are depressed or worried. This is precisely the sort of action that the credit card companies are counting upon. This is the reason that the credit card companies offer new accounts at rock bottom rates to borrowers just exiting Chapter 7 debt elimination bankruptcy even if the borrowers successfully washed away debts owed to the same credit card companies. They figure the borrowers will be all too likely to resume past spending habits – this time, without hope of bankruptcy protection for near a decade – and, more’s the pity, the credit card companies tend to be correct.

Obviously (as you would hope, actually) credit card debts are dealt with according to their debtors’ credit ratings. The Fair Isaacs Corporation devised the FICO credit scoring system more than fifty years ago expressly to guide lending institutions toward equitable treatment of borrowers regardless of rage, gender, income, or, really, anything beyond the borrowers’ history of payment and capacity of credit. To this day, the exact equations remain a mystery – and they grow more complex by the moment – but the overall methods remain a sorta miraculous triumph of democratic capitalism. No matter their earnings, consumers that maintain excellent FICO ratings will always be able to garner credit balances well above what they should ordinarily deserve.

Unfortunately, that availability of credit card debt leads untutored applicants toward significant debts they have no hope of soon paying off. At this point, debt management solutions are necessary. They come in a few different flavors, but all of them contain severe disadvantages. The ideal debt management solution is – yeah, that’s right, we know – to never get yourself in debt. Careful budgeting, spending only when needed, cutting out wasteful expenses, and all proper household financial techniques will do more to prevent credit card debt from overtaking consumers’ lives than a string of limos carrying debt professionals. Alas, since you are already reading this article, we are going to presume it is too late to apply preventive measures, but there are still steps available to successfully deal with the credit card debt problems as they stand.

As your credit card companies will explain (along with many, many other credit card companies that you have never heard of), the easiest solution would be to just transfer all existing credit card debts onto a single account. Presuming your credit rating has not dipped to fraudulent levels, virtually every credit card company should be eager to take on your existing debts for initial rates nudging zero percent. At the same time, every representative of every credit card will urge such a change in debt and mollify the borrower by insisting they will pay off the balances well before the adjustable interest rates would rise.