Media Hits

While a recent Debt.com survey found that 93% of Americans believe everyone should budget, only about 67% do. Furthermore, of those who don’t budget, 39% said it was because they don’t make enough money, and another 22% said it was because budgeting is too time-consuming. A further 16% said they don’t budget because it didn’t help them when they tried.

“In the simplest terms, the federal debt ceiling is a lot like your credit card bill. The debt ceiling is your balance — both you and the federal government have already charged a bunch of expenses. Now it’s time to pay. You write a check, but the federal government needs the House of Representatives to take formal action,” said Howard Dvorkin, Howard Dvorkin, CPA and Chairman of Debt.com.

“If you find another credit card with the same terms and a lower interest rate, sometimes you can convince your current card to shave a fraction of a percent off your interest rate,” says Howard Dvorkin, CPA and chairman of Debt.com.

Debt.com chairman Howard Dvorkin recommends anyone with credit card debt should launch a plan to pay it off now, prioritizing the cards with the highest interest rate first. He also urges people to track where their money is going and look for expenses that can be cut.

“Prices are up for everything,” says Howard Dvorkin, CPA and chairman of Debt.com. ”[People] are trying to make ends meet but they didn’t want to come off looking like the Grinch during Christmas… They went to the store saying, ‘Okay, I’m only going to spend $25 for a shirt for uncle George.’ And you get to the checkout, and that $25 shirt is now $40.”

“Rewrite your budget to include the monthly loan payments. If your debt-to-income ratio is too high with the loan, reconsider taking out a personal loan,” recommends Howard Dvorkin, CPA and Chairman of Debt.com.

“Ask a trusted friend or financial advisor to look over your budget and ask them to be brutally honest,” said Howard Dvorkin, chairman at Debt.com. “Take their suggestions and revisit them in a month to check on your progress.”

According to Howard Dvorkin, Chairman of Debt.com, the best window for holiday shopping is between October 1 and December 1. If you do your shopping in this period, you’ll still be able to take advantage of holiday sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and you’ll also give yourself enough time to shop without feeling the pressure of a time crunch.

Vicki Gunvalson, president and founder of Coto Insurance & Financial Services and spokesperson for Debt.com, joined Cheddar News to give recession advice.

The Debt.com research team compared the inflation rate to Google’s search volume for the terms “lipstick,” “lip gloss” and “foundation” and found a 300% uptick in consumers searching for those products. (Google says 92% of mobile searches result in purchases). Debt.com then commissioned a survey of 1,000 beauty buyers and found that 38% are using credit to buy cosmetics and 37% are buying more cosmetics despite high inflation.

According to a Debt.com survey, 37% of respondents report buying more cosmetics than ever before. And despite inflation, one-third said they haven’t changed how they shop for cosmetics, according to the provider of debt solutions. In fact, 62% of respondents agreed that “lipstick products are an affordable way to treat [themselves] in times of high inflation.”

If you owe a significant amount of money on your credit card, your minimum payment will likely be around 2% to 3% of your balance, Debt.com resident expert and certified public accountant Howard Dvorkin told CNET. However, it could also be as low as 1%.

If you carry a balance, suddenly, 20 percent off that TV doesn’t seem so appealing. “You should be looking at the interest rate, but most shoppers don’t look at that; they look at deals,” says Howard Dvorkin, a CPA and chairman of Debt.com. “You’ve got to be very, very careful.”

Howard Dvorkin, chairman of Debt.com, says BNPL can be a useful tool—or a harmful one. Dvorkin says that you might come out ahead if you use a BNPL loan and pay it off before interest charges kick in instead of carrying a balance on a high-interest credit card.

“If you’re at a dealership ready to buy a car, and the dealer says they can help you pay for that car with an in-house loan, that’s an example of captive financing,” says Howard Dvorkin, an author, certified public accountant (CPA) and chairman of Debt.com.