credit card

Debt. Credit card debt. Personal debt.  For many reasons, people may get themselves into financial difficulty with unmanageable debt levels. These reasons may include sickness, loss of job, broken relationships or purely over-commitment. This article explores methods of dealing with these situations for individuals from informal means to more formal approaches under the bankruptcy provisions to enable financial rehabilitation.

From Financial Stadard:

REST Industry Super has described the renewal of its contract with fund administration service provider AAS as "one of the largest deals in the superannuation industry".

The five-year agreement will see AAS continue to supply REST with full administrative and call centre services, and includes improvements in a number of services, said REST.

Financial literacy is a vital part of navigating today’s complex financial world. However, despite the importance of financial literacy, certain socio-economic groups have been consistently left out when it comes to receiving financial advice. Low income clients are a major group which have traditionally been excluded from the advice process. This is partly due to barriers such as cost and access to affordable advice, but also due to issues such as an industry focus on high-net-worth clients.

How much should parents prepare for a child to go to school?  Australian Scholarships Group (ASG), a not-for-profit friendly society , published a report saying future schooling including kindergarten for kids born in 2012, will be  $428,723 at independent schools, $212,920 at Catholic schools and $65,829 at public schools,  The scary part is that the national survey suggested private schooling costs will grow by 25% in the next 5 years and public schools by 12.5%

With the New Year come and gone, Australians are beginning to cope with a new reality:  Credit card debt with mastercard, Visa or American Express credit cards full with the Christmas purchases.  This year alone Australians have racked up a total of 50 billion dollars’ worth of credit card debt, and most of that is at the highest end of the interest rate scale ranging from a high 19.99% to an astounding 25%.  With the official cash rate at the reserve bank sitting at a low 4.25% credit card companies are running ridiculous profit margins.  If you’re stuck wit