My task each week on SOAPnet's Bank of Mom and Dad is to provide young women with solid advice that will improve their messy financial lives. In return I've received quite the education on some of the reasons we, as a society and particularly women, overspend and compile debt.

When you're building a relationship, building joint credit feels like a natural rung on the ladder. But if the romance happens to sour, that same joint credit can become the backbone of financial devastation.

Scores of the newly divorced, separated or uncoupled who have co-signed for cars and leases or have joint plastic tucked in their wallets are left holding all -- or most of -- these financial bags post breakup. And those bags can get pretty heavy.

"That means someone may be stuck trying to make payments he or she can't afford," says Dan Danford, principal and chief executive officer at Family Investment Center, a commission-free investment management firm in St. Joseph. And that can impact your credit.

Even though few people enter a relationship with the intention of ruining their new mate's credit, many experience this unfortunate outcome of uncoupling. "Beyond not being able to pay your own bills, an ex not paying his or her share of joint accounts can be especially dangerous," says Danford. "Normally, a person knows they're not paying their own bills. But it's common for people to not know an ex hasn't paid until they're served a summons or being hounded by collection agencies." Which means months of late or missed payments have already been reported to credit bureaus and lowered your score.

"I had no idea my ex wasn't paying off the bills he agreed to take on after we split up," says Chloe Martin of Chicago, Illinois. "I found out by accident, when I tried to make an appointment at the vet's office and was told the account had been sent to collection."

Ken and Daria Dolan, America's first family of personal finance, answer your questions every Friday.

Click here to ask Ken and Daria your question

Credit card companies are on a tear, raising rates, slashing credit lines, increasing minimum payments and closing accounts in advance of the new credit card legislation that will restrict their more outrageous behavior. Today, Ken and Daria Dolan of Dolans.com help a WalletPop reader decide if she has any recourse against her credit card company's latest trick.

Dear Ken and Daria,

We got a letter from our credit card saying they were changing the terms on our card. We still have a balance on the card, but we opted out and closed the account. They STILL upped the minimum payment required on our balance. Can they do that?

You'll find simple, proven solutions for managing your credit card debt at Dolans.com.

As we start to buy gifts for family and friends, we may decide to go the easy route and get a gift card. But think twice before you choose that route. New studies show gift cards are the most popular presents to give and receive, but the hidden costs may outweigh the convenience of the gift. Be sure you give and use these cards correctly.

"Gift cards are easy to give, but they are also easy to forget. If the card has a monthly fee or expiration date, these can become costly little pieces of plastic," Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com and author of The Credit Card Guidebook told me in an email interview. "Even though gift cards take the hassle out of holiday shopping, you want to use them wisely. It is important to know the terms of the card you are buying."

There's no doubt that the current downturn has changed people's spending habits.

Since the peak in housing wealth, homeowners lost more than $5 trillion in equity and 15 million homeowners own homes that are now underwater (worth less than they owe). Unemployment is hovering near 10% with no clear signs of falling.

Homeowners' previous piggy bank -- home equity -- is no longer available for spending. Even if people still hold a job, many are worried that their jobs are at risk and won't spend except for necessities.

People, afraid for their future also changed their savings habits. In the first quarter of 2008, before the recession took hold people saved about 1% of disposable income. By the second quarter of 2009 the savings rate soared to 5% of disposable income. But now that we appear to be near the end of the recession the savings rate dropped back to slightly above 3% in the third quarter of 2009, as people see the end of the recession in sight.

While economists now don't believe this recession will be as deep as the Great Depression, its depth and length will certainly change people's spending and savings habits for a long time to come.

Goldman Sachs spent years buying hundreds of thousands of subprime mortgages during the real estate boom, packaging them into high-yield bonds. Now that the bottom has fallen out of the property market, the Wall Street behemoth finds itself in a different role: taking homes away from Americans defaulting on their loans.

That's according to a lengthy investigation by McClatchy Newspapers . The report says there are hundreds of cases in which subsidiaries of Goldman have sought to contain bondholder losses by foreclosing on properties and evicting delinquent borrowers.

With more than $40,000 in credit card debt and more than 20 credit cards to her name, Diana Ryan didn't think she had a problem -- even though her husband had no idea just how many pieces of plastic she had tucked in her wallet. "It sounds cliche," Ryan says, "but I thought I could stop at any time."

But the lure of special offers and other card deals was much stronger than Ryan's willpower. "I couldn't say no when a cashier asked if I wanted to open a new card to get an instant in-store savings or receive a new promotion," she says.

Ryan represents a growing number of Americans who've passed the point of merely overspending and have entered into the realm of addiction. And, in doing so, they're maxing out a record number of credit cards.

Pew Charitable Trust confirmed what most of us consumers already know: credit card issuers continue to implement their most harmful practices, rushing to beat the deadline of the CARD Act.

The Pew Charitable Trust released "Still Waiting: 'Unfair or Deceptive' Credit Card Practices Continue as Americans Wait for New Reforms to Take Effect," which examines almost 400 credit cards advertisements by banks and credit unions offered in July 2009 and December 2008. The study found that 100% of the credit card companies continue practices that will be outlawed by the CARD Act. The lowest advertised interest rates have increased by more than 20% in the past year. None of the 12 largest banks currently issue cards that would meet the requirements of the CARD Act.

Sears is unveiling a new payment option for customers: an enhanced Sears credit card.

Giving their branded store card a facelift, Sears says it added more retail value to carrying a Sears card.

One of the most noteworthy features: access to your credit score.

Sears is the first major retailer to offer its cardholders a free credit score. Susan Ehrlich, president of Sears Financial Services, Sears Holdings, said "customers can review their credit score for free at any time."

Break out the rotten tomatoes. This is Walletpop's roundup of the priciest, sneakiest and just plain lousiest credit-card deals out there. Trust us, there are a lot of cards floating around the bottom of the barrel, so it took a lot of effort to find the ones you probably want to avoid at all costs.

Interest rate: If your credit isn't stellar, you can be looking at paying 20% or more for the privilege of whipping out the plastic. (Even if you have great credit, some cards will be oh-so-happy to sock you with a rate of 15% or so.) For real sticker shock, we checked out co-branded store cards, which typically have higher rates. Case in point: The Gap Visa card has rates that start at 18.24%. That could tack quite a bit onto the price of that pair of khakis. We also looked into the Best Buy Reward Zone MasterCard, issued by HSBC, but they won't even give users information about interest rates until they actually apply! Thanks, HSBC; you've forced us to leave it to our imagination, and what we're imagining is pretty scary.

Annual fee: To be fair, several American Express cards made our best list, but we've got a worstie here, too. With a whopping $5,000 initiation fee plus a $2,500 annual fee, the American Express Centurion Card wins this one, hands down. Luckily, this card is issued by invitation only, so you'll probably never be faced with the agonizing decision of whether or not to drop the price of a cheap used car every single year for the privilege of using this card. For that reason, we're nominating a second worstie in this category: the Visa Black Card issued by Barclays. It's got an annual fee of "only" $495 and an APR of 13.24% -- a higher rate by several percentage points than our best pick.

The deadline for first-time home buyers to take advantage of the government's $8,000 tax credit appears in line for an extension. But the popular tax break has already been fueling a phenomenon that many struggling real estate markets haven't experienced in years: bidding wars.

Lower-priced homes on the market in many once-beleaguered areas have seen a flood of offers, say real estate brokers from Boston to Portland, Ore. Though the original tax credit is good on homes sales completed by Nov. 30, because home deals can take months to complete, new buyers are rushing to close escrows so they don't miss out on the credit.

"It's a welcome change from the way things have been around here," says Carrie Novotny, a realtor in Edina, Minn., outside Minneapolis. She says a recent open house for a two-bedroom, Craftsman-style home listed at $213,000 drew several dozen prospective buyers and more than five serious bidders. The home eventually went into contract for $217,000, Novotny says. "It's been a bit crazy," she says. "People really want to nail down a sale to cash in on the tax break."

Over on our listserv, WalletPOP bloggers and editors occasionally -- and by occasionally I mean daily -- get into heated debates about personal finance topics that are way too boring to think about let alone discuss for the vast majority of people with healthy social lives.

Last week, we ended up debating credit cards -- and whether people really need a credit card. Here's my argument against credit cards:

The more I read about it, think about it, and live it, the more convinced I am that people should not have credit cards.

Fact: People who pay with credit cards spend more money. This has been demonstrated by at least half a dozen studies.

Just when you thought new legislation meant plastic was safe. Credit card companies are finding loopholes in the new Credit Card Act of May 2009. Their motive: Making up for lost revenue and side-steeping the reform.

The first part of the law rolled into effect in August, and required banks to give customers more notice before making major changes, like rate hikes, to their accounts. In February 2010, phase two comes into play with issuers being imposed limits on raising rates on existing card balances. Finally, the third phase will take effect in August 2010, when some penalty fees are capped.

Stopped at my local Shell station recently to fill up my van. I have used my Shell MasterCard for almost six years due to the discount that it offers for Shell purchases.

Much to my surprise, the pump refused to authorize my card and said, "See Attendant."

Well, I HATE going into the stations, that is part of the reason I like to pay at the pump. I talked with the attendant who informed me that my card was declined.

What? I have never missed a payment, never been late, and always paid my balance in full. I quickly got on the phone to the credit card company who informed me that a "recent full review of my credit resulted in the cancellation of my card." When I tried to press them as to what was the issue, they suggested I review my credit information. I informed them that it would have been nice to know I was canceled BEFORE I went to the gas station to get the gas. She said, "A letter will be coming shortly."

Since both of my college kids are on my gas card, I quickly got calls from them wondering if we were going into bankruptcy. I dodged their questions while I looked up my credit information on the internet. Yes, there was a very old bill that I had refused to pay because I didn't owe it from 2006, but also a recent entry from Boston Store. Now, I have no idea why Boston Store reported me to the credit agencies. I don't owe them money, paid them on time, and have never missed a payment.

Ken and Daria Dolan, America's first family of personal finance, answer your questions every Friday.

Thanks to rising unemployment and an economy stuck in neutral at very best, more consumers than ever are struggling to pay their debts. Credit card delinquencies and charge-offs are both at record highs. Today, Ken and Daria help a WalletPop reader understand how debt charge-offs impact his credit and share solutions for managing his debt.

I heard that once your debt has been charged off, that your credit score never gets any better.So, is it a good to accept the offers I get to settle my debt by paying off 60-to 70% of it in exchange for charging off the rest?

--Hector

Looking for debt help? Visit Dolans.com to learn more about debt settlement and other debt management options.