Do you pay your full credit card statement every month?

amother

Bisque

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 11:44 am

I often see women write that they don't even have were to charge more money because their card is maxed out. Just wondering do these women pay their full cc every month? If not, do you pay a huge amount of interest? Is it worth it? I use my credit card because I like earning points, but I make sure to pay off everything every month, otherwise we are paying more interest than points defeating the whole purpose.
Do you use credit cards
For what reason?
Do you pay interest?
Do you pay the full statement balance each month. If not how do you get yourself out of debt eventually? Do you just go bankrupt and not pay it?

amother

Honeydew

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 11:50 am

There is really one, and only one reason not to pay of a monthly credit card statement. It's only when someone doesn't have the money. It's simply being in debt.

If it's a zero percent balance transfer it's another story.

amother

Emerald

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 11:51 am

you might want to do a poll but besides for I believe one month we've always paid the full amount on the credit card each month for as long as we've been married which is over 8 years.
we use credit cards because they are convenient and you get money back.

amother

Burgundy

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 11:54 am

I've been wondering about this as well. B"H we use credit cards extensively to earn points, but always pay them off in full every month.

Recently, DH told me that when he was opening one of our credit card bills, he was shocked to see a balance of thousands of dollars, almost all of which was rolled over from the month before. And when he looked at the transactions, he didn't recognize any of them. Then he looked at it again, and discovered that even though it's from a bank that we have CC's from, this bill was for one of our neighbors, not for us! Mailman error.

DH felt terrible and quickly closed it up as best he could and dropped it in the middle of the neighbor's mail in their mailbox. But without telling me which neighbor it was, he said that he's shocked to see that people who've recently done major work on their house, support a son-in-law in kollel, gone on vacation, etc. are living such a lifestyle financed by credit card debt, making only the minimum payments each month and having interest keep accruing.

It's none of our business, and perhaps they know that they have a bunch of money coming in soon to cover it all, but it was a wake-up call for us to wonder how prevalent this is. So I don't know if this helps you OP, but I'll be curious to see what responses you get.

seeker

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 12:35 pm

It is NOT worth it to carry a credit card balance, for the most part people who do it do it out of desperation, and it is extremely difficult to get out of it.

I use my credit card as if it's a debit card - spending only as much as I know I am able to pay back. Note that I *am* able to pay back, not *will be* able. If I already have the money in my checking account to cover it.

Reasons:
Cash back rewards
Easy to track purchases using Mint.com
Secure against theft or loss, as compared to carrying more cash
Convenient because you don't have to keep going to the ATM for cash or making sure you have the right amount of cash on hand.
I am kind of ADDish so I would have a very hard time keeping track of my money without the credit card. I know some people are the opposite, once they have a credit card they stop keeping track because they can just swipe and forget, but it works for me.

little_mage

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 12:42 pm

As a general rule, we pay off our card every month. The interest rates are high, so you do end up losing a lot of money. However, we actually opened one of those zero interest rate for a year cards last year when we needed to charge more money then we were going to be able to pay in a standard month. We only did that knowing that we'd be able to pay it off before the interest charges kicked in, though.

amother

Honeydew

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 12:49 pm

For the record, while there are people in debt because they buy things they can't afford, many are in debt because they simply don't make enough money to pay their regular bills. As has been said many times on this site, the cost of living for a frum family (especially in-town) is out of site. I would guess that way less than half are truly making it with no help. That means no help from family, including yerusha, and no tuition discount.

amother

Silver

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 12:50 pm

For years, we never had a credit card. Then dh got into the whole points thing and we used to pay it off every month. Then things got really hard, and we started using the credit card more and more. Now we are in super debt and pay off only the minimum due. Currently, I only have $12 left I can spend on my credit card. I'm looking forward to later in the week when we'll pay the minimum due and I'll actually have that money to purchase the things we need. It's basically like the minimum payment due has become like a debit card and we have no idea what we are going to do with the rest.

Fox

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 12:57 pm

One credit card with a limit of $1500. We try to use it only for rental cars or other situations in which a debit card won't work, and we pay it off each month or close to it.

We have no other consumer debt -- just our mortgage.

I won't lie; my DH's health makes our income precarious and there have been really, really hard times over the years. As in, no heat from December through February one year. But I'm happy not to have credit card debt hanging over my head.

SixOfWands

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 12:57 pm

amother wrote:

And some run into hard times occasionally, and use their credit card to tide them over. Someone is between jobs. Unexpected medical expense or home repair, or a couple of appliances need to be replaced at the same time.

Is it the best solution? Not always. But it happens. And its not a moral failing.

MiracleMama

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 12:58 pm

There was a time where we put through some expenses on the card that we knew we could not cover (medical and home-repair) and worked on slowly paying them down over time. With the high interest charge, it's so hard to make a dent. B"H after we sold our house a few years ago we had the money to pay down all our cc debt. Since then we pay everything every month. It is a tremendous relief to not have that burden around our necks anymore.

amother

Bisque

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 1:16 pm

amother wrote:

Why don't you just not pay the credit card and keep the minimum due to spend that way you stop paying interest. Close the account.

Just wondering why people would keep a card open that you can't pay and keep paying interest. I would close it and try to make a settlement. Once it goes into collections they stop charging interest...

MiracleMama

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 1:19 pm

amother wrote:

Why don't you just not pay the credit card and keep the minimum due to spend that way you stop paying interest. Close the account.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. If I owe $20,000 in credit card debt, that debt is growing all the time even if I make my minimum payment due each month. Why do you think they are so happy to let people spend money they don't have?

amother

Bisque

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 1:24 pm

MiracleMama wrote:

I thought you were maxed out and can't charge anymore, just the amount you paid. You said you need to pay the minimum payment to charge more. If that's the case, Don't pay the minimum payment and instead keep that money for yourself and use it instead of using it on your cc.

Just call the credit card company and tell them you can't pay it off. They will send you a few bills and put it in collections. Y hen you can try to make a settlement with them without any interest. Will ruin your credit But make sure only to ruin one name not both names. If you both are on it you and DH, take off one before.

MiracleMama

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 1:45 pm

amother wrote:

Maybe you confused me with another poster.

I said there was a point that we put through a lot of expenses that we knew we would not be able to pay at the end of month and for a few years it sat on our card while we tried to pay it down. We were not maxed out. But we still didn't like owing all that money, especially knowing the $ amount grows and grows as it sits. As soon as we had the means to pay the card off, we did it.

amother

Bisque

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 1:50 pm

MiracleMama wrote:

Yes, I thought you were silver. I quoted silver before. She said she is maxed out and every time She pays the minimum balance she can charge more.

simba

Mon, Dec 04 2017, 2:16 pm

amother wrote:

Please realize that you are very fortunate to be able to afford your life. Yes, some people are in debt because they live beyond their means yet many or extremely responsible and there means just don't cover their expnenses.