Slog about address Personal Finance Credit

address Personal Finance Credit by
"For assistance, you may want to turn to your financial advisor, who can help you to allocate your resources wisely to address your Credit card debt." It helps if you actually read the rest of the sentence.

If someone has a problem, the best person to go to is an expert in that field. Financial advisors are experts in their field. In Australia, where I live, they need to be registered with the Financial Planners Association, upgrade their training every 3 years, and fully disclose their fee structure. If I was carrying Credit card debt, and was unsure how to manage that debt, I would contact a financial advisor. In fact, mine is on speed dial in my mobile phone.

If people go to a financial planner, they either pay an upfront fee for the consultation, or they have a free consultation and the planner or advisor gets paid via fees imposed by the companies they recommend. So if you go to a planner to invest some money, and it's a free consultation, be careful. That advisor might be giving biased advice. If you are paying for the service up front, you are less likely to get biased advice.

People with Credit card debt have financial planners. I know plenty of people with Credit cards, carrying a debt on that card, who have used the services of a financial planner. My partner has a debt on his Credit card right now, which is on the interest free period. It will be paid off on his pay day, several days from today, and well within the interest free period. We have a financial planner. It isn't that shocking.

At the end of the day, it is the individual's responsibility to make a decision. If a financial advisor gives them advice which is obviously unsound, they don't need to take that advice. However, a financial advisor worth their salt would be instructing the person with Credit card debt to minimise debts by paying the highest interest rate debt off first, and making minimum repayments on the other debts. Some people are a bit clueless and need this spelled out for them.

It is easy to blame financial advisors for the state of the economy, but ultimately, it is the individual's fault. People wanted to buy houses they couldn't afford. Some advisors gave dodgy advice to generate nice fees for themselves. But nobody tied the borrower's hands and told them they had to take the loan. It was consumers that started this by taking the loans they could not afford to repay. If you really want to blame someone, blame the lenders that approved these loans, not financial advisors.

December 16, 2009 | 12:21 pm | Report abuse | Reply