Australia - The Final Straw On Debt

On the 27^th of Dec. 2009 Australians were in 1.2 trillion dollars of debt. This is credit cards, personal loans and mortgages.

This works out to be $56,000 for every man, woman and child. But more alarming than this figure is the statistic that it is up 71 percent from five years ago.

Let’s do the sums. So if it is up 71 percent from 5 years ago what does this mean? Well by my calculations, in Dec. 04 as a nation, we owed $33,000 per every man, woman and child. This has climbed by an average of 11.2% each year, every year since then.

On average our debt has gone up by 11.2%. This is not a small percentage; this is a huge percentage. Especially, when you consider most people are only getting a 3% to 4% pay rise each year.

Did you know at 11.2% our debt doubles every 6 years and 3 months. If it keeps going this way we will be at $105,880 by Dec. 31^st 2015... Only six years away.

Our debt is now over 100 percent of our annual Gross Domestic Product. That means if you took every dollar spent on everything for the entire year in Australia on EVERYTHING. Our debt is more than that amount!

Are we going to have the straw that breaks the camels’ back? Will there be a turning point in this debt or will it still be hurdling towards higher and higher debts in 10 years time.

Let other people add to the debt statistics. Let other people pay interest on their debt. Let other people take out loans for holidays and TVs.

Don’t be part of this statistic any more. Help reduce your debt to well below the Australian average. Get rid of your credit cards. Pay back your personal loans. Pay as much off your mortgage as possible. Quietly and quickly reduce your debt. And do it NOW!

Some might describe this kind of debt as a house of cards. Don’t let the house fall down with you being one of the cards. If you get rid of your debt you should ride out the crash much easier when it does come.