If you are finding that you have outstanding balances of two, three or more credit cards you will probably be well advised to look into taking out a debt consolidation loan. This will enable you to spread your borrowing over a fixed period of time. It will also ensure that you are paying a much, much lower rate of interest than you would be paying on your cards. They ignored all the warnings and speculation drove prices ever upwards regardless of common sense. Naturally any boom based on speculation is doomed once people sense that the market is overheating. The market reached its peak in early September of 29 and prices began falling sharply losing 17% of their value over the next month. You need to consider whereabouts on the risk versus reward scale you fit to make sure you feel comfortable with your choice of investment. You can view starting your investing life at such a young age in one of three ways. The first is that it will allow you to begin with slow, steady and proven stocks. It does not take a lot of genius to understand that if you make Certificates of Deposit with high CD rates, you stand to save an appreciable amount. So, the main question here is how you can get high CD rates. It is really the question of only that because with Certificates of Deposit, your principal is assured by the government; you are never going to lose that. While investing in stocks and shares will always carry a certain amount of risk especially over the short term it is possible to minimize that risk. Safe investing is really just a matter of following some common sense guidelines when it comes to that risk. Some of the best known and most successful investors of all time such as Ben Graham, Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch are all known for looking for straight forward opportunities to put their money into. Equally important if someone decides to go ahead is making certain that the loan they are taking out is the cheapest they can get. A great way to do this is to shop around and compares prices and costs exactly the same as for making any major purchase. With the internet available to just about everyone now doing the checking can be a very simple task.