Show me the money

Americans are 'financially illiterate' - survey

The survey presented 1,000 people with a hypothetical scenario about credit card debt and asked them to compute how long it would take to pay it off. Only 35.9% of the 1,000 respondents could figure out how many years it would take for the amount they owe on their credit cards to double. A full 18.2% did not know how to respond and 31.9% of those surveyed over-estimated the timeframe.

Two reasons for this, Americans think math is for Nerds and would rather eat bugs than do math, and the credit companies don't want you to know how much you owe and how long it will take to pay it off, so they hide it in confusing bills and credit agreements with fine print so small you need an electron microscope to read it. We don't help ourselves either.

A lack of savings could be compounding the consumer debt problem. Another nationwide survey of 1,000 Americans released Monday by the American Savings Educational Council (ASEC) and America Saves found that a mere 53% of Americans have adequate savings with only 28% saving the recommended 10% of their annual income