Pondering the CC issues?

[Anonymous]

I have to ask "Why are so many of us having trouble with CCs?"

I know my own situation and I realize the reasons vary widely, but why/how on Earth do such a multitude of people have so much CC debt?

Are we addicts? Do CCs depend on people not paying attention to the details? Do CCs rely on our need to use CCs in our mix of credit to have a good score?

Any thoughts on this???

[Anonymous]

I don't have any CC debt-

I use the cards for rewards and cash flow purposes-

My AMEX green gets the most use- It gets PIF every month

[Anonymous]

Almost the same answer as Timothy.

I have no CC debt.  I have balances on my CCs, but they are the result of purchases and will be PIF'd each month.

I use CCs to accumulate rewards, and for the occasional 20-55 day interest free loan.

[Anonymous]

Simple. People living beyond their means.

[MidnightVoice]

Wot all three of them said, except I do not have a charge card

[Anonymous]

I know my own situation and I realize the reasons vary widely, but why/how on Earth do such a multitude of people have so much CC debt?

Bham......good post. IMO, a main reason is because credit is so readily available. Not all of us have the ability to PIF every month, and we need to carry some expenses over from month-to-month.  Then there are many folks who encounter medical, marital, emergency home repair issues, etc. I don't think the real problem is that too many people having so much cc debt. The REAL issue is how they manage that debt. Some do it better than others - some can't do it at all.  

[Anonymous]

Because as a college freshman who was young and stupid I didn't realize how much I wasn't supposed to charge up my cards.

Then my dh lost his job when I was 9 months pregnant, it sucked.

It's ten years later now and we're about to get our first house, my dh's scores are all around 720 and mine are getting close to the 700 mark as well.

We will be teaching our kids a lot more about credit than we learned. My dh's parents still way overextend themselves on credit.

[MidnightVoice]

caliborne wrote:

We will be teaching our kids a lot more about credit than we learned.

We need not onlt to teach our kids about credit, but about Credit Scoring as well!  Things like missing a payment and Piffing 30 days late is NOT the same as making a minimum payment and Piffing.

[GST2008]

I'm in a similar situation to caliborne, by the time I was 20, I had a citi card with a CL of over 15k, a BoA with about 7k, a providian w/ 3 or 4k, several store cards, and a 2 from cap one. It was great, every time I maxed one out, they would either raise the limit or another offer would come. Needless to say, as an undergrad in college I wasn't able to pay them off and filed for BK in 5/03. Now I'm just trying to get re-established and make up for the lost time. There is also a self-esteem component to it also.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have to ask "Why are so many of us having trouble with CCs?"

I know my own situation and I realize the reasons vary widely, but why/how on Earth do such a multitude of people have so much CC debt? [what Grant said]

Are we addicts? [for the vast majority of us no. for some yes] Do CCs depend on people not paying attention to the details? [a BIG yes especially true for the sub-prime cards] Do CCs rely on our need to use CCs in our mix of credit to have a good score? [no. they couldn't care less how we play the FICO game]

Any thoughts on this???

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