Checking off the Christmas list can get expensive. And many of us
find the real ghost of Christmas past comes in the form of the
credit card bill.
Especially this week with all the
great deals, it’s easy to think you are saving a lot of money, but
if it stays on the credit card, over time you end up paying more.
Sometimes the best financial advice comes in a simple form.
Kelsey Beutler: “20 is the limit
and we can’t use over $20 or it comes out of our allowance.”
Credit cards give big kids a big
allowance. The average American household has $9,200 in credit card
debt, and will charge nearly $1300 over the holidays.
The trouble is some folks find six
to seven months after Christmas they are still paying off the
Christmas presents. And those deals that seemed so good at the time
end up costing 10-20 percent more in interest payments.
Mike Hendren, Deseret First Credit
Union: “I get reports of people paying their Christmas card debt
back three, four, five years later.”
Credit cards are a lot safer than
writing checks or carrying cash, but people tend to spend more with
plastic.
Mike Hendren: “It’s great to go
out and buy the gifts and be able to use them and make everybody
happy, but it really requires a plan as to what they are going to do
when Christmas is over.”
A recent associated press poll
found young adults and those who make less than $25,000 a year were
most likely to doubt their own ability to manage credit card costs.
The average indebted adult between 25 and 34 spends nearly 25 cents
of every dollar earned on debt payments, according to the Demos
report.
Mike Hendren: “During Christmas
time people need to be careful and understand it’s not always easy
to pay it back.”
This may be something to look
into, Deseret First Credit Union, along with many other financial
institutions, now offers a free service to people trying to overcome
credit card debt
