Crazy Money! Record Credit Card Balance

It’s Crazy Money Day!

Americans are growing dependent on credit cards. The last quarterly report from the Federal Reserve Bank reports a record card balance of over a trillion dollars. You could buy a $3 latte every day for 900 million years with a trillion dollars. Here’s another way to visualize it. Say a job pays $1 per second. That’s $3,600 an hour. You’d earn a million dollars in just over 11 days. A billion dollars would take about 31 years. A trillion? That would take 31,700 years.

Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate reports that American’s credit card balances have skyrocketed 40% over the past 2 years. Nearly half of all credit card holders carry a balance, and 56 million have been in debt for over a year. Christians are called to live differently. Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender.” 

The average credit card balance is now $6000. With Minimum payments at 21% interest, it would take over 17 years to eliminate the debt, and you’d pay $9,000 just in interest! So if you’re carrying credit card debt, resolve to pay it off. At Crown.org we offer training in two methods: the avalanche and the snowball. However, a 0% balance transfer card would pay off the $6,000 in 21 equal payments of less than $300. This method can be life-changing for those able to make payments in the specified time frame. Just be sure to read the fine print before transferring the money.

Now if you want to improve your finances this year, try our budget coaching program. It can help put you on the road to financial freedom. Simply go to crown.org and click on the Get Help Now tab. That’s crown.org.