03 Mar 2010 Tell a Friend
Money education charity Credit Action has just launched a service to make it easier for people in financial difficulties to seek help. The Money Advice Map is a new Internet search facility that enables users to search for their nearest money (or legal) advice centre simply by entering their postcode. For added convenience, the listings for each centre will also include details of the centre's opening hours.
Chris Tapp, Director of Credit Action, comments, "Commercial operators have the budget to advertise and market their services whereas charities are more likely to rely on word of mouth and local awareness. The Money Advice Map will enable people to know what sources of free help and advice are available locally." Currently the Money Advice Map incorporates over 6,000 money or legal advice centres, and this number will grow over the coming weeks as more partners join.
As Credit Action's Debt statistics from March show, the average household debt in the UK currently stands at 58,040 GBP (including mortgages). Interest repayments on personal debt such as credit cards and unsecured loans have reached 68.3bn GBP in the last 12 months, with an estimated 187m GBP paid in interest every day.
As an indication of the scale of the issue, an average day sees the Citizens Advice Bureau (featuring on the Money Advice Map) dealing with 9,500 new debt issues and 1,841 people made redundant. A property is repossessed every 11.4 minutes, and someone is declared bankrupt or insolvent every 3.69 minutes.
It is so important that if your debt is getting out of control you acknowledge the problem. In some cases, you may be able to get your finances back on track by careful budgeting and talking to your creditors to make manageable repayment plans. See Credit Action Director Chris Tapp's advice about talking to creditors "Approaching the Debt Dragons".
Visit the Money Advice Map to find the nearest help centre in your area, or read through the Debt articles on the SimplyFinance website for more information about the solutions available to help you get back on track.