Howard Dvorkin Quotations

Sit down, collect all your information, all your bills and write out exactly what you owe. Then, you need to put yourself on a budget.

Most people don't budget properly because they're not taught to. There are no courses I know of, especially in the high school level. A lot of families purposely don't talk about finances; I think that's extremely detrimental.

Obviously, this is theory and easier said than done. Tracking every nickel is a big process and a lot of people don't do it. You can make the best budget, but if you don't track it, what good does it do? In my house, every month, we compare the actual to the budget. It's not fun. My wife hates me for it. But you have to track what you're spending.

You'll see creditors get more aggressive at collecting debt, the reason being that they can.

Between car payments, getting married, buying property, having children, dealing with deaths, most people walk a very tight rope with debt. They make the huge mistake of only making minimum payments. Once something goes wrong in their lives and they need money fast ? they are at a major loss.

There's no pain involved when you pay with plastic. But there is some pain when you go out and you have to part with cash. You worked hard for that green stuff, and you aren't as apt to spend it.

People spend what's there. If it's not there, they're not going to spend it.

You're looking at an economy driven by consumers and consumers are getting killed. The price of everything is rising. The consumer is getting caught in the crossfire.

For many of these people, this could represent the most time they've ever spent in their lives focused on their personal finances.

It's going to be huge. You'll see a massive amount of advertising from bankruptcy mills. Beat the deadline, etc..

Everybody has 15% to 20% of fat in their budget.

The average debt per household is $9,000. The rate now is $180. It will be $360.

In a person's budget, there's about 15% fat that they can get rid of without really feeling it.

I question what they are going to take away from the briefing portion. They're there just to jump through the hoop to file for bankruptcy. They're not there because they want to be there.