Organisations rally for Advice week

- Avoiding debt disaster
- UK Debt still on the rise?
- Debt advice

Organisations rally for Advice Week, urging consumer to tackle debt early.

Advice Weeks is underway (12th-18th October) and UK consumers suffering in debt are being advised to face up to their problems sooner rather than later to avoid worsening their situation.

The Citizens Advice Bureau is one of a number of organisations highlighting the importance of seeking help this week. Others include the Law Centres Federation, Age Concern, Help the Aged and Youth Access.

David Harker, chief executive of the CAB said: "The earlier on an issue is identified, the easier it is to resolve."

"Even people at crisis point - for example people facing a court hearing for repossession of their home - can find their situation swiftly improved if they seek advice."

For free and impartial debt advice, click here.

Recent figures released by Credit Action revealed that the CAB deals with 9,300 new debt problems each day, while the average household debt in the UK stands at £9,180 (excluding mortgages).

One piece of advice being offered by Credit Action this week is to start planning for Christmas in plenty of time. And with just 73 days to go, that means now...

"It's certainly, for many people, going to be much harder if not virtually impossible to do wha t they’ve been used to in the past, because there is just much less credit available," said Chris Tapp, director of the charity.

"Out of necessity, people are going to have to sit down and work out how they can finance Christmas without reference to credit cards or loans."

"A real concern for us at the moment is that people who can’t get credit elsewhere might be tempted to turn to loan sharks as an easy way out, but our advice here is very simple - don’t do it."

"The kind of problems people get into with loan sharks are horrendous. Because it's illegal, it’s difficult to measure how big a problem it is, and the culture of fear that surrounds it means people don’t want to talk about it."