I couldn’t help but draw a parallel between swine flu news and personal finance. When emergencies occur in both the medical and financial world, it pays to be prepared. Here are some ways to protect yourself from the h1n1 virus or swine flu:

• Wash your hands.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
• Cough in your sleeve or tissue and dispose of immediately.
• If you do feel sick, seek medical attention and get help.

These four precautions and steps for swine flu avoidance are very similiar to handling your day to day budget. Here is my list of equilavent solutions to avoid a monetary swine flu:

• Know your spending. Just like washing your hands, you have keep track of where your money is going and what it is touching.
• Avoid excessive spending. Buying that $2.50 Coke at Bob’s Quick Stop is like picking your nose. Sure, it might feel good at the time but the feeling is short lasting and you end up with a booger on your pointer. Plan your spending wisely, just like plan on bringing some pocket wipes to help that booger habit.
• When you do have a cough or bump in your finances, make sure it does not spread into other areas. Confine your emergency to one area. Use your emergency fund (aka tissue) to stop the advancement of debt.
• If you find yourself financially sick – excessive debt, constantly borrowing, unable to pay for your basic needs, please seek help! Chances are that by yourself you can’t overcome this financial virus. Learn about financial planning, budget setting, and debt reduction from the experts.

The moral of the post is this – be cautious with your spending, prevent mistakes with budgeting, be prepared for emergencies, and if you do get the financial swine flu, get help.

 A company spokeswoman declined to provide an exact number, saying the changes would affect less than 10% of the bank’s card customers in the U.S. The bank has 70 million card customers world-wide, but doesn’t break out the number of customers who are in the U.S. “It impacts a small portion of our cardholders,” said Betty Reiss, the spokeswoman.

So what can you do if you find yourself in the position of carrying a low interest balance? Opt out. You can call Bank of America and tell them that you do not accept the changes to the cardholder’s policy. This will keep your current interest rate but with a major *. If you use that card on new purchases, that transaction will signify an acceptance of the policy and therefore kick up your interest rate. If you are being good and not contributing more to your debt, this change should have very little impact to you.

If you are using your credit card to live your day to day life, it’s going to be harder to find a card that doesn’t punish you. My suggestion is to find a way to get off the debt carousel – quickly.

Fitch’s Prime Credit Card Delinquency Index measures credit card debt more than 60 days late through January, and it surged to a record 4.04% in the most recent month, trumping the 3.75% record set in the previous month.

During the last three months, the index has climbed 23%, putting the index 30% above historical averages. Fitch started the Prime Credit Card Index in 1991

That’s pretty alarming. With so many losing their job or fearing the loss of their job, more families are simply not paying their bills. Of course there are some pretty negative side effects to this, mainly your credit rating. If your credit card payments are deliquent over 90 days, you get some serious dings on your rating. Not only that, your debt may go to a collection agency. Once it goes there, you will have a very hard time trying to get yourself out of the hole.

If you do find yourself in this situation, do yourself a favor and call your creditor. Remember, you already are in a tough spot and will have trouble paying. The worst thing they can say is “no” or freeze/reduce your credit. Address the situation before it becomes a problem. Times may be tough all over, but you might be lucky and get someone from the credit card or wherever you owe money that will give you some relief.

If you think you are going to lose your job or your income is going to fall, take the steps needed to help soften the blow. Look at transferring the debt to lower interest rates. Maybe break into your savings and pay the debt off. If you have the cash to pay it off, the worst thing that will happen is that you build that debt back up out of necessity (and not lazy spending habits).

You should honor your debts, but that doesn’t mean you can’ t work with credit card companies or whoever you owe money and come to a compromise.

Talk about doing a 180. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t get an offer in the mail that rewarded me to open an account, not close it. Apparently credit card companies are seeing a dramatic increase in deliquent payments as the recession starts to hit the wallets and purses of the American family. The hope is that they can get rid of these potential problems by bribing them in the exact same way they got them as customers!

I have an AMEX and it is my main credit card. I have the Blue Cashback which gives me a lot of flexibility around what I want my rewards to go to. I however do not carry a balance or have the Gold/Platinum/Black/Adamantium card that AMEX is looking to close. Anyone get a letter from American Express looking to cancel your account for cold hard cash? Are you going to do it? Would you do it?