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Expert Explains How to Get out of Debt

By TONY REID -- H&R Staff Writer

DECATUR -- Drowning in debt? Financial expert Bonita Parker says your misery
has plenty of company.

Parker, who works for the Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition, visited Decatur on Sunday
to conduct a workshop on debt elimination. First, she gave her audience some
sobering statistics:

• Bankruptcies now hit one in 70 American households.
• Americans charge $400 billion a year -- and pay $65 billion in interest.
• The average credit card balance is $7,000 and the average interest rate is
  18.9 percent.

Parker says the only way out of this is for her fellow Americans to wise up,
learn financial management and help each other. She is the national director
of the Rainbow/PUSH 1,000 Churches Connected project, which seeks to unite
diverse congregations to achieve common goals, like financial freedom.

Speaking at the St. Thomas Community Center, where she was a guest of the
Homework Hangout after-school program, Parker said debt was another form of
slavery. "Debt is a form of bondage," she added.

"... But if you build wealth and if you have financial independence, you
have freedom."

Step one to climbing out of the debt pit is making a budget. "When you don't
budget, you don't really know how much money you have," said Parker, 35.
"Instead of using mathematical discipline on how you spend money, you go by
your gut or your wants and you buy on impulse.

"Saying no, I can't afford that, is a tough lesson, and you have to learn
it. It is not revolutionary, it is evolutionary: You didn't get into debt
overnight, and you are not going to get out overnight."

Parker has practiced what she preaches. At age 22, she was $27,000 in debt.
But by using the financial discipline she learned as a bank executive, she
turned her life around and was able to retire when she was 30.

"The average American spends more time planning their vacation than they do
their financial future," said Parker. "We don't see it as a priority, and
that has got to change."

Seventeen-year-old Candra Phillips, who attends Homework Hangout's GED
classes, decided to get an early start. She is about to come into an
inheritance and was looking for financial pointers. "I want to learn how to
use my money wisely and not blow it all," she said. "I'm not good at
budgeting."

Tony Reid can be reached at 421-7977.

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