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As the stock market soars to new highs, here's some sobering statistics to consider. The stock market is at an all-time high but Americans Owe More, Save Less, and are Poorer Than in Decades. Negative Wealth Percentage On the Rise Net Worth Going Nowhere Sobering Stats A greater share of Americans have more debt than money in the bank than at any point since 1962, according to Deutsche Bank economist Torsten Slok.30.4% of US families have negative net worth despite the recovery in housing and the stock market.Median net worth is below where it was in 1989. But perhaps the...

An estimated 1 in 3 adults with a credit history -- or 77 million people -- are so far behind on some of their debt payments that their account has been put "in collections."

Dear Carrie, I'm in my late-30s and trying to dig out from a mountain of debt (school loans, car loan, credit cards). What makes it so hard is that I have two young kids, and my money can only go so far. What should I pay off first? --A Reader  Dear Reader, For many young families, debt is a fact of life. But that doesn't mean it has to control your life. Of course, with young kids, you have a lot of essential financial obligations. And it's quite natural to also want to provide a few extras so the kids...

Thousands of Americans are sent to jail not for committing a crime, but because they can't afford to pay for traffic tickets, medical bills and court fees. If that sounds like a debtors' prison, a legal relic which was abolished in this country in the 1830s, that's because it is. And courts and judges in states across the land are violating the Constitution by incarcerating people for being unable to pay such debts. Ask Jack Dawley, 55, an unemployed man in Ohio who between 2007 and 2012 spent a total of 16 days in jail in a Huron County lock-up...

Dear Dave, My wife and I bought some furniture a while back on what we thought was a 24-months-same-as-cash plan. The original purchase price was $1,600. The other day, I got a call from a collector saying that it was actually a 12-month plan, and the balance is now $2,800. We looked at the contract, and it was our mistake on the length of the plan. Still, that makes the interest rate about 30 percent. Is there anything we can do about this? Robert Dear Robert, This is one of the reasons I tell people to stay away from “same...

This is the season to spend, spend, spend. But if consumers aren’t careful with their credit cards, they’ll need all of 2004 to pay for toys that will be broken the week after Christmas, warn credit counselors and collection agencies. "Using credit cards has become such a way of life that people don’t question it anymore," said Nathan Thompson, a spokesman for ACA International, the Minneapolis-based association that represents third-party collection agencies. "It’s just another cost of living." But that kind of thinking can be dangerous because the average U.S. household has almost $9,000 in credit card debt, according to...