Americans are increasingly leaning on credit to make ends meet, boosting balances and total debt to fresh highs.

Americans now owe $1.13 trillion in credit card debt

  • Ahardyfellow
    4·
    1 year ago

    There are a couple benefits to a credit card as long as you are paying them off and not using them when you don’t actually have the money to pay them off.

    • It can improve your credit score which is important if you ever plan on buying a house, so you can get a loan.

    -There usually aren’t any fees for using the card like most debit cards have (at least where I live).

    • many credit cards offer a reward system which you can use to get free stuff, or sometimes just cash back. I have a dividends and get a percentage back on every purchase up to a maximum.

    So as long as you pay them off monthly, using a CC instead of debit can actually save you money and be a good thing. It’s when you can’t pay them off, and instead just meet the minimum payments that they become a problem since they have crazy interest rates.

    • freebee@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      1 year ago

      It’s often the other way around in yurop. Debit cards are free or cheap, credit cards aren’t. Credit card scores aren’t a thing. They mainly look at job status, income, savings, family money when considering giving a loan for house purchase. There are credit scores and blacklists, but it’s more a background bank and government thing, not a game in your banking app.