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AUTHOR: R Quinn on 7/14/2025
Credit cards certainly help drive our economy and drive some people into financial ruin.
As I stated more than once, my philosophy of personal finance is simply save first, spend the rest but never carry a credit card balance.
My American Express card was recently cancelled by Amx. It was a business card and they said since I no longer ran a business I couldn’t keep it. Even though I had the card since 1986, I had to apply for a new one which I did and was approved virtually instantly. I saved money on the annual fee too, and now accumulate Hilton hotel points. Now I have to travel to use them, but as soon as I figure it out, I know I can use them on Amazon purchases as well.
Then my bank United card raised its fee to $600 a year. Since I rarely fly any more I cancelled it and got a new free bank card with cash back. To my surprise since I received the card two months ago I have accumulated $233 in cash back which I can transfer directly into one of our bank accounts or apply to the card balance. Hey, it will offset the extra 3% merchants charge me to use the darn thing.
All this, despite no fault of my own, lowered my credit score. That seems rather unfair, but I have no intention of applying for any loans so no big deal.
I have to admit it’s easy to spend money with plastic and I suspect it takes some personal discipline to not over spend – even a budget won’t help with that😰
I monitor our two card balances very closely – not with a spreadsheet, just a frequent login to our bank – and pay the balances long before the due date. In fact, just a few days ago I paid enough on one card to cover several pending charges. Yup, they are holding my money and I’m losing 0.15% in interest for 20 days.
Suffice to say credit cards are the proverbial two-edged sword. If I carried the balances shown below I couldn’t sleep during my afternoon nap.
WalletHub estimates Americans paid around $254.2 billion in credit card interest and fees in 2024 alone, averaging about $154 billion annually over the past decade😱. That big number is equal to what the federal government spends in fourteen days – a fact of interest, but no consequence.
A few Gemini generated data.
- Total outstanding credit card debt in the U.S. is about $1.18 trillion as of Q1 2025
- Roughly 46–48% of American households have an outstanding credit card balance
- Among credit card holders, about 48% carry a balance from month to month
- There were over 171 million Americans carrying credit card balances, up from 155 million in Q3 2021
- Among those with credit card debt:
- Average balance per borrower is around $6,400–$6,580 in late 2024–early 2025
- Per household, the average is slightly higher at about $8,940
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 