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Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

wsj.com

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Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#81

Post by xhrpost »

throwawaykeno wrote: post #60
abarringer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your feelings are way off. Most credit card debt is not paid off every month. Not by a very very long shot. Average credit card debt per U.S. adult, excluding zero-balance cards and store cards: $5,232.43 Average debt per credit card that usually carries a balance: $7,494.44 Average number of cards held by cardholders - bankcards: 2.24 Average debt per credit card that doesn't usually carry a balance: $1,128.44 http:…

> Average credit card debt per U.S. adult, excluding zero-balance cards and store cards: $5,232.43 That is amazing and terrifying.

Median is $2,300 which brings this into perspective a bit more.

http://www.valuepenguin.com/average-credit-card-debt

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#82

Post by cylinder »

lifeformed wrote: post #78
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an eerily prescient 2006 documentary about consumer credit called "Maxed Out," which featured a scene where someone recalled going to a conference of bank and credit card executives, and one of the CC CEOs plainly stated: "The bulk of our profits come from people making minimum payments for the rest of their lives." As for "pay-in-full" folks like you and me, credit card companies could care less. Whenever…

How do CC companies make money off of minimum payments? Don't they lose money by lending more than what's paid back?

Lenders just want debt service, not principal paid back. Loans are an asset on a bank's balance sheet.

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#83

Post by ComputerGuru »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #77
dionidium wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Could care less" is widely understood to mean exactly what we all know it means.

It would be nice if it wasn't.

> It would be nice if it wasn't.

Since you're being pedantic, you might want to go back and change that to "weren't" instead of "wasn't," as it is a hypothetical supposition. (And yet, I agree with you.)

(please no one comment on the comma inside the quotes. I think we're at this awkward point in grammar history where we're seeing a transition from "all punctuation must be inside the quotes" to "sometimes it really really doesn't make sense for the punctuation to be inside the quote, especially if you're not quoting a person saying a full phrase.")

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#84

Post by itchyouch »

askldfhjkasfhd wrote: post #67
joslin01 wrote: post #44

Gather round and I'll tell you a tale of how to lose at the credit card game. When I turned 18, I got my first credit card. I asked my father "good idea?" and he said yea, good to build up credit. Ok then. A week later, my new card with a whopping limit of $750. Never having experienced not paying with cash I had, it gave me an odd thrill and I went out to eat with my friends and joked "It's like free money!" And des…

Can you elaborate on how you perceive the difference between the two examples here? Being financially foolish and negligent seem both to apply to your experience. "Was I being outright financially foolish ordering $100 bottles of Chardonnay at the club? Not at all. Was I being financially negligent ordering whatever small thing came my way that I wanted?"

A single large purchase is usually planned for and budgeted. E.g. buy computer for $2k and pay it off over the next couple of months $300/mo at a time. Though IMO, $100 of chardonnay at a club is pretty frivolous.

Usually it is a death by a thousand cuts when it comes to racking up credit card debt. $20 for lunch, $50 for gas, $65 for some clothes, $100 for the electric bill. The problem is that pseudo-necessities like food, gas, entertainment don't have an end and reoccur indefinitely. It becomes really easy to fall into the trap of purchasing 2x $10 meals a day, and it easily becomes $600/mo, while the $200-300/month in groceries that were also purchased with the plan to stop eating out makes for a $800-900+/mo food bill.

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#85

Post by nametakenobv »

superuser2 wrote: post #58

I propose that credit card debt is simply the earliest signal of "not making enough money to sustain the life you think of as normal." We have not yet come to terms with the fact that the overwhelming majority of people outside of a tiny sliver of elites are going to be lucky to afford bare subsistence in the years to come. Credit card debt lets us delay confrontation with the reality that wages have not grown enough…

Please stop with this heart-breaking narrative about the unequal in income, starving americans. It's about iphones and clothes, not groceries.

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#86

Post by urda »

dionidium wrote: post #72
throwawaykeno wrote: post #7

One thing that's unclear for the article: does this include debt that never incurs any interest? I typically have an outstanding balance in the 3-4 figures on my credit card because I pay for rent, gas, and airline tickets with credit. However, it gets paid off every month. I guess that's technically debt, but it's not problematic or anything... I feel like the majority of credit card debt is the type of "debt" that…

How do you pay rent with credit?

Considering it is 2016, many Landlords have some form of payment processor they can use to accept credit card payments.

Love it, as it's how I get a ton of miles / points for money I'm already spending anyway.

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#87

Post by itchyouch »

lifeformed wrote: post #78
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an eerily prescient 2006 documentary about consumer credit called "Maxed Out," which featured a scene where someone recalled going to a conference of bank and credit card executives, and one of the CC CEOs plainly stated: "The bulk of our profits come from people making minimum payments for the rest of their lives." As for "pay-in-full" folks like you and me, credit card companies could care less. Whenever…

How do CC companies make money off of minimum payments? Don't they lose money by lending more than what's paid back?

You ever see the new disclosures on a credit card?

It usually says something like: On your $1000 balance, paying only the minimum will take 7.5 years to pay off the balance and you will pay a total of $3500. Pay $35/mo and will pay off your balance in 3 years and pay a total of $1500.

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#88

Post by EvanAnderson »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #83
EvanAnderson wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if it wasn't.

> It would be nice if it wasn't. Since you're being pedantic, you might want to go back and change that to "weren't" instead of "wasn't," as it is a hypothetical supposition. (And yet, I agree with you.) (please no one comment on the comma inside the quotes. I think we're at this awkward point in grammar history where we're seeing a transition from "all punctuation must be inside the quotes" to "sometimes it really r…

Touche.

(The "punctuation inside / outside quotes" is something I think about in my writing nearly daily. It's nice to know somebody else thinks about it, too.)

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#89

Post by conception »

xhrpost wrote: post #81
throwawaykeno wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Average credit card debt per U.S. adult, excluding zero-balance cards and store cards: $5,232.43 That is amazing and terrifying.

Median is $2,300 which brings this into perspective a bit more. http://www.valuepenguin.com/average-credit-card-debt

Thanks for this. Was about to go nuts about how useless an average is on this sort of thing.

Re: Credit-Card Debt Nears $1 Trillion as Banks Push Plastic

#90

Post by itchyouch »

urda wrote: post #86
dionidium wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you pay rent with credit?

Considering it is 2016, many Landlords have some form of payment processor they can use to accept credit card payments. Love it, as it's how I get a ton of miles / points for money I'm already spending anyway.

With the additional 2-3% that is charged, it comes out to about very similar to purchasing the points directly.

Like Amex SPG costs $157 for 5000 points. If I pay my $1500 rent via my Amex but with an additional $50 premium, after 3 months, I have 4500 points for $150, versus being able to purchase 5k points for $157. If I spend $525, I can get 20k points. So it's better for this particular card to put aside the extra fees paid in rent then purchase the points in bulk at discount than earning the points directly.

Ideally, there's a landlord that doesn't assess an extra 2-3%, then it would totally be worth charging rent on a card.

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