If I told you I'd have to kill you.

Anonymous wrote:$10,000 roughly. It's not a good scene and we're trying hard to get a handle on it. But we live on very little with two kids under the age of 3 so I think this period of our life is simply marked by debt.

how did you decide you could afford two children?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Zero. Pay off in full each month, including last month's 11k AMEX bill. We charge just about everything to earn freq flyer miles. We have a high limit because of excellent credit rating but we keep our spending reasonable and never get near our maximum level.

To be able to pay off $11,000 in one month, your monthly take home pay must be enormous! Just curious, how much do you bring home every month? I have around $10K in credit card debt from a few yrs of not being able to find a job in my field. I still had to pay my student loans and my job didn't offer health insurance so I paid for that out of pocket. I also became a single parent so I actually had no choice (short of moving into a shelter) to use my credit cards. Now that I have a decent paying job w/ health insurance, I can start making a dent in the $10K.

Just because their last month's bill was $11K doesn't mean that it is every month or that they paid it out of one month's income.

I've had months where our credit card bills were that high (like the month we charged having our basement replumbed and then waterproofed or the months after big vacations). We always pay it off but the high expenses have been budgeted for all along and are paid for out of the money we've saved for those purposes.

$10,000 roughly. It's not a good scene and we're trying hard to get a handle on it. But we live on very little with two kids under the age of 3 so I think this period of our life is simply marked by debt.

Anonymous wrote:"None. Never have had any. Have no debt of any kind now. Are your daily expenses too high for your income, or are you impulse spenders?"

I also have zero, but I do realize that I'm lucky that I make enough money, and have never experienced any real financial emergencies, so that I've been able to set aside a substantial savings to cover me - at least for awhile - in case anything bad does happen.

That's what I'm asking. All credit card debt can't be due to medical emergencies.

The rewards programs are nice

Don't use debit cards as they have way fewer fraud protections than credit cards.

If you have paid off your CC in full for 2+ years and have the usual 3+ months of take home in the bank, then I would feel safe using credit cards as you have demonstrated your trustworthiness.

Anonymous wrote:Zero. Pay off in full each month, including last month's 11k AMEX bill. We charge just about everything to earn freq flyer miles. We have a high limit because of excellent credit rating but we keep our spending reasonable and never get near our maximum level.

To be able to pay off $11,000 in one month, your monthly take home pay must be enormous! Just curious, how much do you bring home every month? I have around $10K in credit card debt from a few yrs of not being able to find a job in my field. I still had to pay my student loans and my job didn't offer health insurance so I paid for that out of pocket. I also became a single parent so I actually had no choice (short of moving into a shelter) to use my credit cards. Now that I have a decent paying job w/ health insurance, I can start making a dent in the $10K.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

How do people get such high cc debt, don't they get their card declined? Do they have a huge amount of cards - if so that's just asking for trouble (however I understand how money/bills can really add up so I hope those that have the debt can stick to a plan to pay it off and I'm sorry for your stress).

Before the recession the credit card companies gave me ridiculous credit limits and we spent just about up to those limits. Of course we spent it so I'm not blaming them entirely, but now it's much harder to get credit and for us that's a good thing. It's helped discipline us. All our cards are closed and we're just paying off what we owe. I'm glad that when we pay it off there won't be this big line of credit tempting us to splurge on a vacation we can't really afford or buy some new toy/bike/jacket that DS or DH "need".

But why would you use those limits as your budget, rather than your actual income/available cash?

We didn't treat our cc'd as part of our budget, but we were young and stupid and didn't really know how to communicate about money (or how to manage it for that matter). DH was out of work/under employed for nearly two years during this time and we didn't know how to say no to ourselves. We've gotten much more disciplined now, but a toddler in daycare eats up a ton of our budget, so we haven't been able to pay it down as quickly as we would have liked. I take responsibility for our situation AND I know if wouldn't have been this bad if I didn't have lines of credit that far exceeded our annual income.

Zero. Pay off in full each month, including last month's 11k AMEX bill. We charge just about everything to earn freq flyer miles. We have a high limit because of excellent credit rating but we keep our spending reasonable and never get near our maximum level.

We pay it off every month. But are drowning in education debt...

Anonymous wrote:Well now it makes more sense how Obama got elected twice. People busy running up their own deficits aren't going to be too worried about the nation's. All I can say is "wow" to some of the pps.

Oh yes and I'm so sure you were so worried when Bush plowed through a surplus and created a trillion dollare deficit. Um, he got elected twice as well. What the hell is your point!? You're on the wrong thread!

Anonymous wrote:Zero. I pay off my cards in full every month and I'm teaching my kid to do the same.

+1

Well now it makes more sense how Obama got elected twice. People busy running up their own deficits aren't going to be too worried about the nation's. All I can say is "wow" to some of the pps.

None. We pay them off in full every month. But Christmas was bad, so was January. Just paid a credit card bill for over $5k. But from here on out it should be fine.

Anonymous wrote:Zero. I pay off my cards in full every month and I'm teaching my kid to do the same.

Me also. I do tell the kids to use the credit cards instead of debit and we use ours also. Reason? The points and reward programs. Never pay any interest but charge over $5000/month.