Another week, another successful poll in the books… The question of the week was “Do you typically carry a credit card balance?” and there were over 215 responses.
To be completely honest, I was a bit surprised by the results — the overwhelming majority of respondents either never carry a balance (61%), or do so only infrequently (17%). Given all that we hear about the debt load of the ‘typical’ American, I was expecting a lot more people to fall into the frequent/always categories. That being said, visitors to this site are most likely a highly non-random sample, and are probably don’t reflect the tendencies of the average American. Once again, you should also check out the comments, as there are some good thoughts there.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to participate in the credit card balance poll, please do so. And be sure to check back next week for the next poll in the series. As always, if you have any ideas for topics that you’d like to see covered, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Well,I have 3 credit cards, but the only one I keep a balance on is the one with a 0% interest rate, which right now only has a $200.00 balance. The other 2 I use occasionally, but pay them off in full each month if I do.
The debt we always hear about is the $9000 average that those with credit cards have. Averages can be very deceiving (if you’re in a room with Bill Gates, what’s the averge salary in the room?) The truth is that 55% of Amercans have no credit card debt (25% don’t have credit cards and 30% pay off their credit card each month). Of those that do have credit card debt, the median is $1,900 – not near as bad as we are lead to believe. The average number is quite misleading…
I agree with MoneyDummy, the people that take the time to (1) find this website and (2) read it are not the type of people that typically carry debt. (Please do not take that comment as disparaging.) Most of the people that responded they do carry debt are probably people that are sick of it and took the time to find help.
I know that’s why I’m here, I’ve been married for less than a year and my wife and I are trying to get started off on ‘the right foot’ the best we can (and yet still deal with two sets of private school tuition). Thanks for the time you put into this.
I’m glad you mentioned that we’re a very non-random group. Chances are if you care enough about personal finance to be reading fivecentnickle, you care enough about personal finance not to carry a balance.
Also, there are probably a lot of resondants who have (on a single occasion) or used to on a regular basis carry balances, but who no longer do.