Just saw on the news. Average credit card balance is $6,400. We use them but pay them off monthly.

Insane. Folks can't afford the high cost of living these days so they're living off credit cards. Road to financial ruin.

I don't carry a balance on personal cards. There are some months where my business card has 80k on it but the balance gets paid every month. I have an aversion to debt and have never borrowed money even on a credit card. I may change my tune if the car manufacturers bring back 0% intrest like they did shortly after 9/11.

I’ve seen the hand to mouth folks around here use a CC just to be able to pay their electric bill.

I know folks with $20K+
I may charge about $2,000 a month, but I pay it off just to start over again.

That's crazy expensive we pay ours off every month I'm not paying that interest.

Not to steel the thread, but i know a woman who ran up $70,000 in various CC's only to declare bankruptcy
and have it all wiped off.

I figured it would be much higher than that.

They have a purpose, mostly to trap those who abuse them

Mr T; That sounds like a business plan

Our oldest daughter and her first husband ran up about $30k on the cards. That girl loves to spend money, but she and her new (well, he ain’t exactly new) husband have things under control now. Sort of.

We rack up more than $10k per month on credit cards. Pay them off in full each month and get airline and hotel status and points. It's a no brainer for free travel.

Crazy indeed. We use an airline miles card, charge everything and pay off 100% at the end of the month. I cannot imagine thousands of dollars in accrued balance and simply making interest payments monthly.

Shows you how much Credit Card companies make

It's a mafia style business.

There are loss provisions that protect against BKs. All lenders have this.

Had an ex that never paid off anything card-wise. Once she became ex, I paid off everything and use cards regularly, but pay everything off each and every month.

It'd be near impossible to not "use" a credit card. I put everything on my Scheels card. We use others from time to time for travel and reservations but never carry a balance. I like American Express, they keep me up to date on my credit report, have great service and will back me up in a pinch. Having a good credit history comes in handy every now and then and using credit cards the way we do seems to help.

Had a girl co-worker come into my office many years ago. She knew I was good with math, and she wanted to know how long she’d have to pay on their card debts. I asked how much she owed and what she paid, and did the calculations and the hard cold truth was that she and her husband were paying only the interest. I had to tell her that at the rate she was paying, she’d never pay it off. Lord have mercy, how she cried.

That caused me to later, when they were older, tell our daughters how all that worked and to save money and not go into debt. One daughter listened, and the other one went shopping.

We put everything on CC's except the yearly lease payment. Haven't paid a penny in interest in over a decade as the balance is paid in full every month. I wasn't so great with $ until I married my current wife and she's a master.

I remember right before our kids were old enough to go to college, friends told me that CC companies were all over college campuses, handing out flyers and getting kids on the hook. Shameless.

We have always paid everything off every month and we are very fortunate to be debt free for a while now. I still make mistakes and waste money, but, thankfully, it doesn't hurt us too bad. What really pisses me off though is that I know there are folks that can't afford to make the same kinda mistakes I do. I detest being wasteful.

I put everything I can on my Cabela’s card, everything I get at Cabela’s is free, I probably have about $700/$800 now in Cabela’s points, I need to go buy something.

Average balance means nothing. Average carry over balance, that is an issue.

Discount Tire gives you 5% off if you use their CC but they won't give you a discount for cash. Never have understood why. I make a point of buying expensive tires and use their card to get the discount.