I just heard the average American has 5 credit cards and the average household debt on credit cards is $10,640!! The wife and I have one with a zero balance - does anyone know a husband and wife that have 10+ cards and 11K+ in debt? If so tell them good luck on getting out of that hole!

My ex had run up $36k in credit card debt by 1989 (try paying 20% interest on that).

She would not stop spending. I took them away, and she managed to get a couple more.

I divorced her, and once the bills were paid, have not carried a credit card debt since.

I know a couple that at their worst had $17,000 on credit cards. Now they are down to $11,000.

My ex ran up close to 5K when I was 19 and I thought I was screwed! I worked my a** off to get that paid off and I won't let that ever happen to me again.

I don't carry balances....haven't since my ex-wife left me with $20K in cc bills I did not know about..it took me 5 years to pay it off...

Wife & I are working towards paying off all unsecured debt by the end of this year. $8k left and we are done.

I owe a little over 5 grand on one. I could pay it off but it is interest free life of loan so will leave it be and pay minimum.

I once charged an Acura on a VISA card.....It was late Friday night and I bought the damn car with one of my VISA cards........that was the days when I had a 785 credit rating and a damn near unlimited amount of funds available......would not do that again.

Charlie

.

NINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.

Credit cards....Max them out...Toss them in the trash...Get new ones...It's the American way.

JonR

Buddy of mine had a $60k credit card debt. Took a divorce and liquidation of assets to clear that one. I have 2 cards one of which we use like a debit card and is paid off each month. The other is rarely if ever used.

When my wife and I first got married, she seemed to think we were "rich" and that credit cards were magic money -- she did a LOT of damage and it almost cost us our marriage... (It took me a while to get her to understand that although we had household income like she'd never had as a single girl, she stopped working, we had a mortgage, I was paying for everything, I took over her car payments, I wanted to save aggressively for investments/retirement, etc.)

We got things under control, and eventually confined her to "cash only" or, in case of emergency, debit card, or in case of HUGE emergency an actual credit card. Now I transfer money into her checking account each pay period and wish her luck.

And we've (almost) recovered from some of her spending sprees of a couple of years back...

(THAT'S why I'm so excited about my three-year-old son's Gold Amex!)

ScottHar

Good GRAVY! Don't get me started on this subject...

Scott - my wife did that to me, too. TWICE!

We got that all figured out now.

I pay mine off at the end of every month. She don't have any now.

We have 2 CC's. 1 Visa, and 1 MC. Never use the MC but its available if ever I need it.

0 balance on the Visa.

I was having a conversation with a guy at work. He said there are guys that, due to their spending habits with CC's, don't have enough money for food so they are always hungry... He let me know that leaving your lunch in the fridge could be a gamble as some guys have taken others lunches so they could eat something...

40+ and acting like they're teenagers from a financial standpoint... I'll bet their parents did an amazing job teaching them about things like a budget...

MACS, should've married a Korean.

They're so tight that when they open their wallet, Andy Jackson has sunglasses on... lol

We have 3 visa's and an amex. 1 visa for most monthly expenses, amex for Costco - both paid off monthly. 1 visa for emergencies and charge vacation expenses once a year to keep it active. Do not keep CC debt. Been there, done that, I have the t-shirt (the one with the holes in it).

B

Statistically speaking, I'm sure there are plenty on this forum who have CC debt, but won't mention it because it's not something to be proud of for sure (embarrassed). One person may feel horrible for having 5k on a credit card, and then comes along someone with 10k, making the person with only 5k feel better about themself...and so on and so on. 🙂 So, in the spirit of embarrassing ones self, I'll say that at my worst, actually OUR worst (being married), we probably had upwards of 30-35k in CC debt. And that was probably no more than just 12 - 15 months ago. Since then we've cut that in half or better. We didn't even have a bunch of CC's. One of the things that seemed to blindside us (still no excuse) was a couple 12 months same as cash purchases of some major appliances...and a tv...ahem. A 12 month SAC purchase here, and another 12 month SAC purchase there, next thing you know, you got a lot of payments to make. Talk about a weight on your shoulders. I still carry some of that weight. It feels good to have paid it down a lot, but with the current economic times it can start to feel like that weight starts to come back just based on uncertainty.

I'll make some of ya'll feel better about yourselves....

We have about $14K on 4 CC's right now, down about $3K from this time last year. We went through a rough spell several years ago where we had virtually no money and had to use them. We're *slowly* catching up. Her credit score is 720, mine is 707.... so just 'cause you have a lot of CC debt, it doesn't mean your score is bad. We pay more than the minimum payment on all the cards and have not paid late ever on any of them.

Anyone wanna donate to help us pay them off????? LOL

ZERO.

I'm almost expecting the ones I do have cards with to notify me that they're no longer interested in my business.

I could live without them, but they are handy.

I expect they'll be denying people cards soon too. The only people that will have them will be people that can't seem to use them right.

We have two we use for online orders only, paid off monthly.

Speaking from personal experience, credit Card debt is just dumb. If you don't have the cash, don't buy something. I'm not being a smartazz, this time anyway, it just fact. And no, I'm not independently wealthy, I just a working guy.

Look at Dave Ramsey's total money makeover plan. You can get rid of that debt and live without CC debt.