Will 2018 be an excellent year for you? Your best bet, stay healthy!
I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year, and now is a perfect time to take a moment to see where we stand financially, both as a country and individually. As we commence our journey through 2018, records are being broken. The stock market is skyrocketing with weekly all-time highs. The unemployment rate is at the lowest levels not seen for 40 years or more. If we stop here, then 2018 should be an excellent year for everyone. Right?
Before we answer that question, let’s look at some other records being set in the new year. First, non-revolving consumer credit, which includes auto loans and student loans, is at the highest level ever at $2.805 trillion, with student loan debt rising to an all-time high of $1.142 trillion. Both auto loan and student loan delinquencies are on the rise.
Second, revolving consumer credit debt, or credit card debt, has pushed up to a record high of $1.023 trillion. Was this increase in credit card debt the result of a robust holiday shopping season? Maybe the increase was the latest result of the euphoria over Bitcoin. A scary trend on Google is the sharp increase in people searching for opportunities to purchase Bitcoin on a credit card. Please do not buy any highly speculative investment on a credit card, especially one that appears to be imaginary and not backed up by anything of value. A Saudi Prince recently described Bitcoin as the next Enron. Remember Enron? The days of two men and a briefcase, where companies reported favorable financial conditions through creatively planned accounting fraud.
A lesser-known contributing factor to the increases in consumer revolving credit card debt is medical expenses. Even with good insurance, medical care is expensive, and medical costs continue to increase at alarming rates. During the last ten years, medical costs have increased by 34%, which increase is more than in any other spending category for a typical family. There are estimates that as many as 27 million American consumers are paying their medical bills on credit cards. Medical costs increase even higher when you consider the average American pays $471 per year in interest resulting from medical charges or more than $12 billion spread across the general U.S. population.
Unexpected medical expenses are hard to control and budget for among all the other household expenses. What insurance fails to pay, it’s on the medical consumer to absorb, a cost they often cannot afford. An estimated 29% of Americans have problems paying their medical bills, and at least 37% incur additional credit card debt to pay their medical costs.
Medical debt is currently the No. 1 source of personal bankruptcy filings in the United States. Are you overwhelmed with medical debt, or any other type of debt preventing you from obtaining a great start to the new year? If you are, contact me today for a free consultation to learn how you can get a fresh start to a better financial future. And, as always, Press on Regardless!
