Credit Card Debt Summary of Alaska

Alaska, although segregated from the contiguous United States, has not managed to avoid being affected by the recession. Economists predict that because of swift decline in prices, Alaska will lose roughly 3,400 jobs in the 2009 fiscal year. Further job losses are expected as former Governor Sarah Palin initiated a hiring freeze in January 2009 for positions within the government and the state-sponsored oil industry. In the major municipalities of Alaska, Anchorage and Juneau, the government, including federal, state, and municipal, is the primary employer in the economic sector. As individuals' discretionary income lessens, the decline in tourism is expected to affect smaller boroughs such as Sitka and Wasilla.

As history has shown repeatedly in times of crisis, people turn to available lines of credit for day to day necessities. As recent data has shown, this has proven to be the case in Alaska. According to TransUnion, one of the premiere credit reporting agencies, Alaska retains the highest average of bank credit card debt in the nation at an average of $7,827 per consumer with an average interest rate of 12%. As this is considered to be only an average, many people possess a higher debt amount across multiple balances. For example, in a study of students in Alaska by the Sallie Mae Foundation, eighty-four percent of undergraduate college students possess a credit card. Fifty percent of these students were discovered to possess more than four credit cards with an average balance of $3,173.

With the economic downturn in Alaska, fueled by the swift decline in the demand for and pricing of oil, it is quite easy to become overwhelmed in credit card debt. As the amount of credit card debt increases, interest rates tend to increase as well. The minimum payment alone can rise to a certain point where the payment is not scratching the surface of the principal owed. While the economy of Alaska has been somewhat shielded from the worst of this recession, it is not immune to it. It is necessary for the citizens of Alaska to take precautions to protect themselves from falling into the quagmire of credit card debt. We can offer the tools necessary to discover the best personal solution to reduce your credit card debt.

Education is the key solution to mastering your credit card debt. In the credit free for all of the late nineties and earlier this decade, few folks bothered to read the terms of agreement that accompanied their credit cards. If the interest rate or the minimum payment was not high enough to induce an immediate heart attack, the average consumer did not bother to concern his or herself with the fine print. Debt should, first, be prioritized into secure versus unsecured debt. The amount of income within the household should be budgeted to maintain necessary secure debt, such as mortgage payments or car loan payments. However, unsecured debt cannot be ignored either. If a consumer should default on a loan payment, the repercussions can reverberate for years on his or her credit history.

In order to educate yourself about your credit card debt, it is helpful to obtain and review the terms of agreement with your credit card company. There might be an exception or loophole which could prove valuable in assisting with the reduction of interest rates. As the finessed language of fine print is often indecipherable, our website offers a glossary to help decode the difficult terminology. With the information in front of you, now would be the time to gather other pertinent information. What is the current balance due on the card? What is the interest rate? Is the card already over its limit? Are the fees you pay dependent upon the balance of the card?

The credit card optimizer located within our site is a useful tool in determining which credit card debt should be paid first. After the correct data is input into the optimizer, the optimizer will advise you about which credit card can be paid off first with the least amount of money. It also helps to determine if certain actions, like balance transfers, will help to conserve your money.

If the amount of debt which one owes is simply too great, debt consolidation might be the right solution. Debt consolidation, simply defined, is the combining of several loans or liabilities into a single loan. This might allow one to reduce the debt more quickly with less money. The rolldown credit card calculator offers the simple option of paying off your credit card with the highest interest rate first. When this card is paid off, the payment is moved to the credit card with the next highest interest rate until it too is paid in full and so on.

The ultimate measure of how other companies and lenders view your credit standing is your FICO score. FICO, or the Fair Isaacs Corporation, is the predominant corporation who commandeers the credit rating system in the United States. The method in which FICO calculates your credit rating is used by mortgage lenders, credit card companies, other lenders, and the three major credit reporting agencies. These three agencies, TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax, often have three different scores assigned to one person.

Each agency receives their information from varying sources, and each agency uses slightly different calculations to determine your credit score. The more well-known lenders, like mortgage companies, will use the average of a person's three scores to create a score in which they base their decision upon. The three-in-one credit report, offered by many companies for convenience, is  simply determined by the average of your three scores. While diverse in their policies and practices for issuing lines of credit, credit card companies generally tend to rely on a person's FICO score to determine what type of borrower you will be. Because of their differing practices though, one credit card company might look at the average of your three scores to determine your eligibility while another might base their decision upon the lowest of your three scores. It is important to monitor closely all three of your scores.

The average FICO score in Alaska is a 674. This places the average on the higher end of an "OK" rating, but it falls six points below the mark needed for a "good" rating. With economists predicting an impending rise in unemployment for Alaska, a lack of income will undoubtedly incite Alaskan citizens to use credit to pay for their necessities. Faced with the possibility of a sharp increase in the use of credit, this will drive down the FICO average for Alaska. By already carrying the highest median average for bank credit card debt in America, the citizens of Alaska have shown a tendency not to be heedful of the future impact of their current financial status.

According to the Federal Reserve Board, in December 2008, U.S. consumer debt hovered around $963.5 billion dollars. Ninety eight percent of this was credit card debt With the data showing that the citizens of Alaska are increasingly relying upon their credit cards, there is a just cause for concern. If you are currently  suffering from these financial hardships, or have suffered in the past, or see yourself headed towards this path, our website can help. We offer a comprehensive range of tools to promote self help with credit card debt. There are also available more specialized services, like debt consolidation, if your situation so requires. Your financial future depends on what you do from this point forward.

In order to further protect yourself and to help others who might be facing a similar problem in the future, please contact your congressional representatives concerning your feelings toward credit card reform. You can make a difference. Utilize the information above to help further reform credit card laws and questionable lending practices.