You Might Be A Credit Card Addict If…

April 25, 2014

When I sit down to talk with someone about their finances, I get the basic information about how they are positioned in various areas of life such as age, kids, income, 401k contribution percentage and balance, other investments, rent/mortgage, other debts, etc…the standard questions a financial planner asks to quickly assess a situation. Something that is more common than I’d like it to be is hearing about the way people “manage” their debt load. When I read this article about credit card addiction, it really struck a chord with me.  I have heard each of the 10 behaviors that indicate a potential problem with credit cards…recently. Actually, I’ve heard all of them in just the last week.  Continue reading “You Might Be A Credit Card Addict If…”

The Hidden Evils of a Hardship Withdrawal

December 07, 2010

I recently received a call from an employee who was considering a hardship withdrawal.  If you handle these requests as part of your many HR tasks, you probably see an uptick in these calls during the holiday season.  Tammy, a single mom, was seeking a solution to paying off her credit card debt and felt that tapping her retirement fund could be an easy fix.  Now we all know that paying off debt is not an acceptable hardship based on the IRS’s definition of an immediate and heavy financial need but many employees will simply say the money is needed for avoiding eviction or another acceptable hardship when in fact their intent is to use it to pay off credit card debt. Continue reading “The Hidden Evils of a Hardship Withdrawal”