Every now and again I like to pick your guys/gals brains. It’s not only helpful for me to see if I am at relatable to the people who read PDITF, but hopefully it’s also helpful for you to see where you stand against the masses. Since the value in today’s post is probably coming from the comments section, and not these words, I’ll cut right to the chase.
What is your total credit card debt?
It’s really that simple. Apparently the average household (that has at least one credit card) has nearly $16,000 in CC debt. Let’s see if that rings true for this community.
I’ll get this party started. Our CC balance currently stands at $3,505, and like always, will be paid off at the end of the month. What’s depressing is that our most expensive purchase included in that balance was $140 for car insurance. That means we have a ton of freakin’ small purchases that amount to a rather large balance. Dang.
Your turn. What’s your balance (and why is it what it is)?
extra credit questions: What is the interest rate on your card(s)?
ZERO
We put some things on the credit card, but always make sure that we can pay in full, husband and I are paranoid about going into debt
no debt that is not payed of at end of month, interest rates on the cards we have are between 13-17 % if they were ever used….
75k of consumer debt, most of which is either for an investment or a lower rate than our mortgage (mortgages here are not tax-deductable, and if i can get long term consumer debt fixed cheaper than my mortgage, damn well i’m doing it).
Some of it is 1-2 year interest free appliance purchases taken instore. Interest rates vary from 0-2.9-6.9%. A small portion (7k) is our monthly expenses.
I don’t know the exact dollar amount, but I estimate it to be about $300. We pay off any credit catd debt every 2 weeks. Interest rate is 19.9%, which is irrelevant because I never carry a balance. I use the card for everything so I can accumulate the travel points.
Amex is at 13000 with a 9.9% apr. It’s not awesome, but the visa card with a 10.9 is completely paid off as of July 3rd and unused for over a month. Amex will be paid off in about a year.
Congrats on paying off a CC!!
Zero here as well. I may have a current balance of around $100 that gets paid off every 1-2 weeks.
$309.53. That may go up in a few days as I just bought a new computer, and I have to refill some expensive prescriptions. Statement balance is always paid off in full, so I never pay interest.
I put a lot of small purchases (grocery, gas) on my debit card, and since that comes right out of checking, it never adds to my credit card balance.
Our balance is $810 – we purchased 3 airline tickets to FINCON (hope to chat with you there!). I’m scheduling a payment for half of it today and the other half for next week.
Our balance is $3,150 and the reason it is what it is, my wife’s birthday was last month. Not sure what the interest rate is because we pay it off every month. Only use it for the cash rewards.
About $1000. Use them for the cash back and pay them off in full every month. I’ve never paid a cent in interest.
There’s nothing on the credit card right now because I recently paid the balance off, like I do every month. I’d say wee usually have $100 to $900 on the CC before it’s paid off completely at the end of the month.
Currently $0!! I never hold a balance into the next month so I don’t really need to know what the interest rate is
~$6,000… but it might as well be $0 as we pay it off each month. I couldn’t tell you the interest rate.
We made a few big purchases recently… a photo package of our newborn and airline tickets. The rest is the nickle and dime things that just add up.
$1,103 – purchased furniture this weekend. Will be paid off before it’s due on 8/12.
and APR is – I have no idea – I pay off balance before it’s due so I do not look at the interest rate.
$249.89, to be paid off by the end of the month. 12.24% APR (I had to look it up, as I try never to pay interest). I also have a $7 pending charge on the other credit card- no idea what that APR is, but it’s probably higher.
I have 2 credit cards, but currently only use 1 and just paid the statement. It was $380. I pretty much use it for everything because I hate to carry cash.
Current balance $151.47 – I, too, pay it off monthly and only use the card for cash back. I think the interest rate is 13.27%, but not sure since I never pay interest 🙂
Two cards:
1-$3263.01 (paid off each month) 13.24% APR
2-$8743.53 (should be paid off in October) 0.00% APR until October
Just to represent the other end of the spectrum, we currently have $13,555 in credit card debt, spread over 4 cards with interest rates range from 1.9% to 5.9%. This balance has accrued from 14 years of not quite sticking to our budget, plus probably a bit from our 2004 wedding. It does not include the revolving debt that we pay off in full each month (household and personal spending, currently about $2500/month).
If you had asked this question back in January 2012, I would have reported credit card debt of $31,623. If you ask again in December 2012, I will report ZERO. Inspired by the financial woes across Europe, we decided to make 2012 our Year of Austerity and pay off all our consumer debt in 12 months. We’ll be finishing one month early and it feels great!
That’s inspiring to me. I carry about $30,000, mostly medical bills. I have insurance but my husband had a transplant and there are life long expenses that go with it. Congrats!
Good for you!!!!!!!! It’s never too late to get out of debt! and boy will you enjoy the freedom and choices that come along with it1!!
Right now, less than $1,000, and, like you, it gets paid off every month. My interest rate is about 13%, but I only know that from when I applied, not because I’ve ever been charged interest =)
My balance is around $500. (Not in a spot I can check it right now, but it’s around there.) It’s all purchases made since the last billing cycle, and it’ll be paid off by the end of said cycle.
I also have a debt consolidation loan that’s around $6700 worth of older debt, some of which is credit cards.
Every bit of my spending is done through credit cards, but the balance is paid off every week, about $1000/week, so the effective balance is $0. No idea what the interest rates on the cards are. (Amex, Penfed, CapOne). About the only thing I can’t pay via credit card is my mortgage….
About 20k. All at 0%. 5k is a down payment for a new boiler at the house. 7k is from a 0% balance transer and 6k+ is expenses.
Ill either pay it off or find another 0% Balance Transfer at the end.
Pays to have good credit.
We use our credit cards for everything so we can get rewards points, but we pay them off in full every month.
We have a total of $4850 in CC Debt. Our biggest card has $3200 on it along with a vacation from 2 years ago. Learned a lot since then! Can’t wait for it to be down to ZERO!
$551.50, I pay it off every pay day. I have never had any debt on it other than the standard spending and paid it off regularly. I have everything possible charged to CC to receive the cash back rewards. Plus it’s easy to balance eventual dips and bumps in charges. E.g. car insurance I pay annually, it sometimes helps to use the CC to even out the influence on my checking account.
I have never had any other debt than mortgage and a 0% car loan. The car loan I wouldn’t do anymore today, only spend what you have.
Interesting to see the others.
Thanks,
Chris
$12,000 (?) It’s hard to answer because we haven’t yet totally combined our finances. We each kind of revolve in our own money words except for the joint things like the apartment and everyday expenses like food and transportation expenses.
I budget by spending $1000 a month (or less) on my credit card and then pay it off each bill cycle. I don’t know the APR since I’ve never paid it.
Currently at $602. But I also pay mine off every month. My rate is 13.99%.
I would guess there’s about $2800 on our cards right now and would guess that the rates are somewhere around 20%; both are irrelevant though as we pay them off each month. We spend maybe $100 cash/month between the two of us, so that’s all of our spending. This month will be a bit higher by the end, due to a vacation; previous month was higher due to buying the plane tickets for said vacation.
Usually around $2-3k, but paid off in full every month like most everyone here 🙂 Think the interest rate is around 18% on both? Honestly I don’t know because I’ve never paid a cent in interest and never plan to.
Our current balance is $1944.38 and I have no idea what the rate is because we always pay it off before the end of the month. Our most expensive purchase on this month was a new set of tires for the wifes vehicle which ran us $679.52, but we will be getting a $70 rebate in 8-10 weeks. We put almost all of our monthly expenses on it (other than normal bills) to get the rewards points.
About $1550 so far, but it gets paid off every month. This month is pretty expensive because we just upgraded our phones to Galaxy S3’s, plus it was the Steam summer sale. Normally, we just use it for all normal purchases — gas, groceries, dining out, online purchases, etc — because of the cash back. We get 3% back on all Amazon.com purchases, 2% on gas/restaurants/drugstore/office supplies, and 1% on everything else.
Since February of this year, we’ve redeemed $250 of rewards without paying a cent of interest. Granted, we bought a house so we had lots of new-home purchases, which led to higher rewards than normal. In 2011, we redeemed a total of $250, but in the early part of the year we paid some interest due to our wedding/honeymoon. I still think we came out ahead though.
We pay ours off every 2 weeks, like a lot of people here, balance usually around $400. I think interest is 19.9%??…don’t know for sure. This weekend my f$%^king HP laptop died, so we will soon have a $800 charge coming (getting a business class ThinkPad — my last one lasted 7 years, not 2 and a bit for the HP).
#1 – $2,672.76 – 7%
#2 – $1,575.79 – 3.2%
#3 – $3,574.46 – 0%
#4 – $1,236.45 – 0%
#5 – $1,347.08 – 0%
#6 – $1,297.87 – 0%
Why? Because I was young and stupid and thought I needed/deserved lots of crap. I’m paying everything down with the help of a debt management counseling center. They helped me talk the CC companies into lower rates if I promised to close the accounts. My credit score has gone up 100 points since I started working with them!
Best thing that ever happened to me.
Finally nice to see someone in my similar situation of young and stupid! (I don’t mean that in any bad way…just kind of depressing reading everyone’s responses of “I always pay my cc off every month”. I really can’t wait to be in the position. Just need more income to help in that department!
Yes–I imagine we are in good company. It’s been four years and I’ve paid down about half of it. It’s a slow process but it has definitely helped me to change my spending habits. I’m finally in a place where paying it off in the next two years seems doable.
Good luck, and if you are looking for a debt management organization, I used Money Management International. It’s not debt consolidation. It’s like debt therapy!
$485 on credit card. Will be paid off at end of cycle. Interest rate ???
We have $5000 car loan, interest rate 6.9% daily accrual. Paying it off aggressively right now. Hoping it will be gone in a year.
Don’t like debt.
Two credit cards currently total $1,011. It is all consumer debt that we didn’t save up for. Does this mean I haven’t learned my lesson? Probably. We could easily pay this money off with emergency fund money, but right now Cash is more important to me than debt.
Zero
I never use my credit card 🙂
Currently it’s 1223.31 (per my spreadsheet). I put everything I can on my Discover card, the cash back I get pays for Christmas presents every year. I pay it off every month, so I have no idea with the interest rate is.
Only other debt is my house, which I just plunked $15k down on Friday woo hoo!
Probably around $1000 right now. I have no idea what the interest rate is like many people here since I pay it off in full every month.
Balance due next month is $1800, but we pay it in full each month. I have no idea what interest rate is, if I had to guess it is probably between 14.99 and 23.99%
CC#1 has balance of $1200. Fixed 7.9%. It was used to pay for house projects. Should be paid off by October.
CC#2 currently has balance of $1020. Variable 12.5%. It’s paid off at the end of each month. That’s the travel/recurring payments card.
I’m surprised you pay your insurance monthly. Most companies I’ve dealt with charge an extra fee for paying it monthly. Sure, it’s only about $3 to $5 per each payment made, but it seems that you would be able to save that bit.
Although I suppose I have no room to talk carrying a balance on a credit card :]
I’ve got about $17k left on my card. 3 years ago, it was 30k and we had a car loan, a maxed out overdraft protection account, and a student loan top of it. With no savings.
Today, we have an emergency fund, money for my kid’s braces, and technically enough cash to pay off the credit card debt. The only reason it’s not paid off is because we need to make sure we have enough to fix up a house we just inherited.
I’ve got around $3,000 in credit card debt from buying my first home. Going to have that paid off ASAP (around 20% interest rate). Then I have my mortgage, which is debt but isn’t too bad and I can write off the interest rate which is nice.
At this very second right now, we have a $380 balance on two cards – because my husband spent his birthday money on some electronics! The rest is utilities, groceries, some gas… normal spending stuff.
We pay our cards off in full 2-3 times per month and have never carried a balance. I have no idea what the interest rates are because they’ve never mattered – probably high because they are rewards cards.
Current balance is about $180. I use the card for EVERYTHING (hate carrying cash) and pay it off around every 2 weeks. The interest rate is high, around 23%, but I’ve never paid a penny of interest. It’s a great rewards card so I’m happy with it =)
Right now about 80-100 which will be paid on Friday. I pay my cards down to zero just about every Friday. I use to have over 8,000 in credit card debt at the age of 20. And I still owe a friend for helping me get out of that. But I paid down all my other credit card debt last year and have stayed on track since. I’m 25 now. And hopefully have learned my lesson after digging myself over 4,000 in the red 3 times.
About $20k. Got into a big mess with a home addition-our builder was an ok builder but a bad money mgr so he took us over budget and gave me an unfinished house. A lot has gone on those credit cards in order to finish the house. Sucks but I’m making about $6k progress a year or more so on the right path.
about $5,000, but like you, I pay it off every month. Most of that is travel expenses which my company reimburses, but I keep the POINTS! 🙂
I also don’t know what the percentage of the card is since it’s never a factor, but I do pay an annual fee of $60.
Saw one comment about FINCON, so jealous. I almost went this year. Def next year!
Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. No way man, once my wife and I climbed out of CC debt, we stayed the frick out!
about 6k in credit card debt (spread over two cards) the majority of that was due to infertility treatments (which are ridiculously expensive). We plan on having our cards paid off within a few months though. Since we carry no other debt because we paid for our home in cash and did the same with the car – I will happily accept the credit card debt because it was for a good reason and I know we can pay it off in a timely fashion.
Around $500 and like many others that have commented I pay it off each month. Interest rate was 19.9% last week, but when a new card arrived in the mail due to the old one expiring in August I had to call and speak to an operator to activate it. The operator congratulated my on never carry a balance and offered some balance transfer offers that I didn’t need. She also noted how high my interest rate was and I explained to her that I had a low rate 2 yrs ago but it was jacked up when a collection appeared on my credit report in error…the collection was quickly disputed and taken off the report but the increased interest rate remained….She then asked if I wanted her to check to see if I am eligible for a lower rate & after 10 seconds she told me the new interest rate was 10.9%. Won’t matter because I don’t plan to ever carry a balance but I will take it.
The balance on the card I pay off every month is currently $832.33. The interest rate is 19.99% (not that I ever actually pay it).
I also have another card with a balance of $13,508.15 that I am basically using as long-term borrowing. I just keep paying the minimum and when the promotional period ends and then I do a balance transfer to a different card. The rate on that is 0.9% for the next 18 months.
Ranges from about $1000 to 4000 at any given time (all of our household expenses, pretty much — neither of us uses much cash), but always paid off within the billing cycle. I honestly have no idea what my interest rates are but we get at least 1% cash back…
I just incurred a huge (to me) debt of 12,000 to go back to grad school and change my career at 40 years old. I had been debt-free and in a very good financial situation previously. It was scary to do. But it actually worked out great. I got my dream job after graduating, thanks to that degree, and the chance I took. I am now paying triple payments to get rid of that debt. So your site is very encouraging.
I encourage anyone out there to take chances if it means living the life they want. I am much happier with this debt and my new job than before. I was financially fine, but sad, and sitting on what was to me a pile of money. I have just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Now I ask you, what would I feel if I got this diagnosis and I had not followed my dream. ( I live in Canada, by the way, so the cancer will not make me endebted, instead I feel like I have lived a full life and no regrets.)
Wow, Georges. I’m sorry to hear about the cancer, but I am so glad that you followed your dream. What an important message you have shared with us. Thank you.
I pay mine off every month–always have. Current balance is $135.47.
ZERO! I don’t have a credit card, I plan on getting one on the future, but I’m a broke jobless college student at the moment, so I can’t even afford to look at credits cards. However, I’m 5,500 in debt from the first year of student loans.
Currently, $482. But I never run a balance month to month, and I’m actually gonna pay it off now. Thanks for the reminder!
I had someone blog about my credit card debt.
http://theendofinsanity.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/when-youre-surprised-3/#comments
Not only did she blog about me, but she started a nice comment battle when she tried to get her followers against me. I use followers loosely since its mostly people slapping their heads as they read her inane drivel.
Oh and I was banned from defending/commenting.
Tom and Evan,thank you for posting what I am unable to post.
My current balance is $22.81.
I paid off $5k in credit card debt last year and for the last six months have been using them and paying the balance off monthly. It’s amazing because I’m actually EARNING money doing this instead of paying the credit card companies. The perks might even eventually even out so I come out even one day. But all I can say now is that I’m so glad I learned how to use credit cards responsibly!
We have 2 Mastercards and 1 Visa between us. All three are paid off in full every month.
We put about $1,000 on Nick’s Mastercard each month, and $50 on mine.
The Visa is specifically for gas (it gives us 2cents off per litre) – we put about $150 in gas on that card each month. We use credit card for 99% of our purchases (anywhere they’ll accept it)… I find it so much easier to keep track of spending.
$17 for Netflix! Typically it’s been about $1-2k per month but I always pay in full.
Currently $2,505 but that’s because of school and buying wood for a deck I just put in. It’s paid off monthly, though, so might as well be zero. 🙂
We pay off our creditcards in full every month. I used to manually make payments every month but I stopped that after I was a day late and had to pay interest and late fees so I set up automatic payments that do it in full.
When I was in college and I felt like I was potentially letting my creditcard spending get out of hand I would quit using it altogether for a couple of months and only use cash to get a better sense of what I was spending. For some reason you think about it less when you are using a card.
I am not into debt at all. I will never pay for something with credit if I don’t have the actual cash.
When I was rounding out my senior year and working like crazy and watching my savings account build up I hit a point where I was like hmmm, what do I do with this? I looked into investing it but realized that my loans/debt was were costing me more than I could earn. So I viewed my loans as investments and paid them off before I graduated. Debt is scary. I rather have no debt and little cash for some reason.
Ahhh yes, I promised you an update! My credit card debt is $19,615. It’s on 2 cards, the Discover at 15.99% ($1179 balance) and the other card at 10.48% and balance of $18,436. I am planning to have the Discover paid in full in less than 2 weeks!!! Last time you asked I said I would pay it off by June so I guess I am one month late :). Then I’ll be transferring $7K from the other card to Discover because they have an 18 month 0% APR which I plan to take advantage of. It’s going to be really possible to be debt free by 30 especially if some of my businesses start panning out 🙂
I was once financially irresponsible…now I’m joining the ranks of the responsible…
$14,800. Down from $34,000 in December. I charged part of the purchase price plus some repair costs for a rental house on mine. The banks have too many closing costs and fees, plus high interest rates, and a huge pain in the butt application process and turnaround time. So, for a 3% transfer fee and 0% interest for a year, I had Citibank drop $20K and $14K in my bank account. Put another $12K on my Home Depot Credit card (now paid off; no interest for a year)
So funny – banks are stringent about writing mortgages to investors, but are willing to loan $34K in unsecured credit on a single credit card with 2 simple phone calls.
That’s very true…because credit card operations are very profitable and default rates are very low compared to other loan products. Great work reducing the balances!
231.00 I will pay it at the end of the month to avoid any interest. My husband has 2.31 credit, so his I must have slightly overpaid or he underestimated a bill.
oh and the interest rate is 19.95% for purchases and 22.22% for cash advances. There is a yearly fee ($40.00, I have never managed to find a no fee card here) but we get more than that with reward points.
I have $11600 with USAA at 12.9%, $1300 with Capital One at 17.9%, $3500 with Discover at 1%.
Why?
Expenses usually higher than income. It’s just me working trying to provide for a family of 5, wife going to school, graduating next year.
-Adam
$8700
No way to pay for it at the moment, either. Pretty sure I am looking at penalty APR’s as well.
$3300, be paid off by October.
If you asked me 3 years ago, it would have been $30,000. My husband and I have been working hard to pay off idiot choices from being young and stupid and a wedding, with nearly 1k a month in student loan payments.
I cannot wait until I can say ZERO and start saving for a home!
This one is easy. $0. I don’t have nor will I ever have another credit card. Learned the hard way I can’t do CC responsibly. Good for those who can. Just not for me.
$0.00…holla! Actually, that’s not true. We charge most of our monthly expenses for the cash back (it adds up to be several hundred dollars over a year) but pay it off each month. This was a big month with baby items and plane tickets…so about $1700 that will be paid off in full.
For all of you with CC debt…I can relate! There was a time when I was in CC debt up to my eyeballs. $9000 making $30000/year and trying to support a deadbeat fiancee. Eventually I ditched both.
You can ditch it, too…the debt, and the fiancee if it happens to be the same guy 🙂
Once you do, you’ll never go back!!!
0 dollars and 0 cents. We have no credit card debt, and have not for the last 15 years. Both of us have good impulse control, are savers/planner, and just don’t believe in paying interest on purchases for things like shoes. It’s stupid – buying things that go DOWN in value and paying EXTRA for the priviledge.
We only have a credit card for unanticipated expenses, and we always pay it off entirely when we use it. So, $0
Just had a massive credit card bill last month, paid it off as usual. However, I need to get a grip on the recent lifestyle inflation that has plagued me for the last year. I swear it’s tough to balance saving and spending, especially when spending is so much fun after having saved for the last 10 or so years. I’m actually missing saving money these days. Maybe I need a second job…
Wow, well reading these posts sure has not been comforting.
My family’s debt:
Cap One # 1 $732 22.90%
Cap One #2 $972 15.90%
HSBC #1 $1181 27.99%
HSBC #2 $4525 19.99%
Visa #1 $2963 22.99%
Visa #2 $2171 24.99%
Target #1 $98 25.24%
Target #2 $2475 22.90%
Discover $3660 22.90%
Macys $209 24.50%
Old Navy $808 24.99%
We were ridiculously financially irresponsible teenage parents who moved out too young and did not go to college and now we are paying for it, literally.
I hope this comforts you Jackie and Stacy, lol.
Thanks for that Katy, i thought I was the only financially irresponsible person in the whold wide world.
Cap One #1 581 22.9
Cap One #2 300 19.99
HSBC 451 22.99
That’s it, my credit was shot before with student loans, divorce and being a single parent. I got these low- balance cards!
Zero debt here, too. I use the cards to get rewards but never buy anything I can’t pay off in full at the end of the month.
The only exception was my divorce lawyer. I can honestly say that was GOOD debt. 😉
My balance is around $20 right now, and my rate is somewhere around 18%. I had a balance for a few months while my husband was underemployed, so I payed $100 in interest over the last 6-8 months… but he is well employed now and my balance is gone – I like paying it off every month but using it for the airline points/miles.
My husband does have around $3k on a 0% credit card. He ends up paying 3% every 18 months to transfer the balance to the next 0% card. We have the cash to pay it off, technically, but given our massive student loans, he prefers to put any extra cash toward paying those down since some are at 5 or 6% or above.