en-us http://backend.userland.com/rss Your Friends @ Myvesta.org.uk (stever@myvesta.org) myvestaukblog_archive.html stever@myvesta.org 112440839124978056 Our love of the credit card in the UK continues to rise, at least as measured by usage and debt.

According to the group Datamonitor, the combined value of all transactions made on credit, debit, charge and store cards was 436 billion pounds in 2004, 11 percent higher than in 2003.

And when you look at the levels of debt that we carry these days it is very possible that UK consumers could double, yes double, the amount of debt they carry within ten years.

These are the times that we all need to exercise financial caution. With employment rates slipping and the housing market starting to cool off, those things we’ve learned to depend on, jobs and equity, could disappear unexpectedly.

I certainly don’t want you to feel like the sky Is falling, the world is not going to end tomorrow. But it would be healthy if we simply looked at our personal financial situation before we bought the next big ticket item and asked ourselves just one question, “Do I really need this”.

In reality the economy is cyclical and while times might become tougher and some will suffer, we will survive, but it might just be differently than we planned for or expected.