Today, I heard on CNN NEWS about a study researching a gender gap in financial wisdom. According to this study, women look for help and advice when they are already in financial troubles while men seek out financial advisors to avoid those troubles and plan for the future. Men follow the developments on the stock markets at a higher rate than women and men also are more likely than women  to pay off their credit card bills in full every month.  

It seems that many women could really benefit from the services of a Money (Life ) coach.

The study was done by Financial Finesse, a provider of financial education programs. Read more details  .

Christiane is Life Coach and teaches Psychology at a Community College in Massachusetts. Her website is www.coach4u.net. Sign up for her newsletter.

The other day, I heard in the news that the average American household owns 10 credit cards and owes more than $ 10 000 to credit card companies. Now, many lenders are pulling back by curtailing credit card offers and credit lines. At the same time, lenders are also increasing the APR of many credit cards. The APR of one of our cards for example was recently increased to 28 %! If we had debt on this card, it would be extremely tough to pay it off.

Lenders are pulling back because they fear that more people will default on their loans. In the first half of 2008, they had to write off about $ 21 billion in bad credit card loans.

For consumers, it’s therefore most important to increase their knowledge about credit card management and how to use them more wisely. Texas public accountants offer 5 tips for consumer squeezed by credit crunch:

Tip No. 1: Check your credit limit (because it may have been lowered recently).
Tip No. 2: Call your credit card issuer and negotiate for lower rates.
Tip No. 3: Read the fine print on future offers.
Tip No. 4: Consider using year-end bonuses and holiday gift money to pay down credit card balances.
Tip No. 5: Stick to your holiday shopping list and pay for gifts with cash.

Read more details
If you would like a crash course in Credit Card 101, read the Federal Reserve information on Credit Cards. There you will get excellent information about APRs, finance charges, or grace period, to name a few tems.