Personal Story Of Credit Freeze And Recession

I hadn't really been affected by the credit freeze and recession until this week.

First, my small business credit card company, Advanta, sent me a letter saying that the financial trust that back all of their loans was no longer backing their loans. For this reason, Advanta said they were shutting down all of their business credit cards.

Shutting down all of their business credit cards? I am lucky that my Advanta card was only a back-up that had no balance on it and was not needed to operate my business. However, I can't imagine the other small businesses who depend on a monthly credit line from Avanta getting this letter in the mail.

My second personal story of the credit freeze and recession came when I found out how hard it is to get a car loan these days. My wife and I found a good used car that is a good deal. We decided we would buy it so we started looking for a car loan. We could pay cash for it, but we have some expenses and life changes coming up so we would rather use a loan to purchase the vehicle.

We know that used cars are often not accepted for a car loan so we looked into a line of credit on our mortgage. Even though we have near perfect credit and are never late on any of our payments, we are having trouble finding a loan.

If we can't get a loan, with our very good credit, I wonder how other people are faring in this market. No wonder there are so few cars being purchased these days.