Money Minute: Tuesday 4 February

Figures released this week show that 48% of all personal debts now belong to women. Many women who are looking into getting IVAs have said that they are rethinking or putting off their plans to have babies. Many women do not feel comfortable bringing up a family while relying on IVAs, so does financial insolvency decrease birth rates? Read more here.

The economic recession has forced more people than ever into IVAs and other forms of debt solutions. Meanwhile, 1.2 million workers have stopped putting savings into their pension. This imbalance spells bad news for the economy and for those planning on ever retiring… Find out about the rise in IVAs and the drop in pensions, and what this all means here.

Both homelessness and applications for IVA help are on the rise in the UK. Crisis, the homelessness charity, warns that this is just the tip on the iceberg and, if this downturn turns into a depression we could see the middle classes turning to IVA help and even living on the streets.

There is more than one way to consolidate debt and if you make the wrong choice it could end up costing you more money. Find out about the options open to you, what each one involves and which may be best for your situation.

People in the UK have the option of using an IVA to write off debts that they cannot afford to pay back. Find out how and IVA works and whether you may be eligible to set one up.

If you’re an active servicemember, you know that you have other things to worry about than a debt that needs to be paid. You’ve got a tough job and if you’re focused on doing it well, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be worrying about your debts. Inevitably though, so many service members come home to find that their families are at risk of being put out on the streets due to bills that couldn’t be paid, or that they are facing other really big financial difficulties.

In more developed nations, monetary and financial policy plays a major direct and indirect role in governmental efforts designed to expand economic activity in times of unemployment and surplus capacity and to contract that activity in times of excess demand and inflation. Basically, monetary policy works on two principal economic variables: the aggregate supply of money in circulation and the level of interest rates.

Article that discusses lessons learned in my time as an SBA workout consultant. Offers insights that borrowers can use.

Are you beginning to feel the squeeze from financial problems? If so, it may be time to learn five strategies that will help you reduce debt and begin to take your life back.

The steps that need to be taken to get out of debt are not difficult or complicated. In the simplest terms, you only need to spend less, while making larger payments to your credit accounts. But most people who have tried these simple techniques are surprised to find that it’s really quite challenging.

With our economy ever changing the cost of living is still growing and our pay continues to stay the same. The golden key that links a lot of us together through this bumpy ride is the fact that we have a credit card to pay for any unprepared expenses. What happens when these expenses exceed what our monthly income provides us?

With worst case scenarios, no matter how fantastically paranoid, darting about the brainpan of even the most ordinarily rational of lapsed borrowers once they realize they’re on the phone with a debt collection representative, debt relief specialists have come to resignedly accept the decent odds that their clients will hamstring their own chances at an enlightened compensation package during the very initial bout of correspondence. Even consumers who’d previously thought themselves fully girded against telemarketed manipulations will helplessly allow the lender reps to prick the edges of their darkest nightmares — whether explaining to a boss that creditors will soon…