Handbook

There used to be a time when consumers strode into shopping malls, pockets bulging with credit cards.At the first sign of a sale, they would flick out their plastic like old-west gunslingers reaching for a sixshooter.Well, the party's over, says Cardtrack, a Frederick, Md., newsletter. Cardholders now are charging less and are having ++ more trouble paying off their bills.Consider these recent findings:* On average, cardholders will pay an extra $25 in interest charges this year because of higher balances.

Stephen R. Chapin Jr. was fresh out of active duty with the Navy when the Persian Gulf crisis began last August. Friends and neighbors around Westminster besieged him with questions about the risks to their sons and daughters deployed to the war that would come soon."