People are delinquent on almost everything they owe money on

[jakeman]

Its pretty simple. If you know you wont be able to make the payment at the end of the month, and you know whether you admit it or not, leave the card in your pocket.

Why dont they teach basic economics in grade school or HS.?

Get ready to own nothing an like it..and eat bugs.

 

[TerryMiller]

One I heard many years ago, although not from my own father, was "Do you really want to wake up to see that woman every morning for the rest of life?"

 

[Forgalspop]

My sex talk from pop was :

"Use a rubber."

When sex education was first instituted for schools to provide in the early 70's, our gym teacher sat all us boys down in the gym and told us he was required to provide sex education to us. His total lesson was, "If you keep in your pants, you will avoid a bunch of problems and complications and diseases." That was the total sex education he gave us. LOL

 

[chuter]

My sex talk from pop was :

"Use a rubber."

Mine was a little longer; "if she'll do it with you she'll do it with somebody else, use a rubber"

 

[crapsguy]

Its pretty simple. If you know you wont be able to make the payment at the end of the month, and you know whether you admit it or not, leave the card in your pocket.

Why dont they teach basic economics in grade school or HS.?

Get ready to own nothing an like it..and eat bugs.

I’ll start by saying that I got my first credit card in 2001 and I have NEVER had a balance and pay it off every month. I use it for everything I can to get the cash back.

My wife lost her credit card so I cancelled it and ordered a new one. I was changing over all the bills I pay with it to the new card number and had to call the company that picks up my trash because I had a payment scheduled for the same day I cancelled the card. The same day the payment was due. I was worried I was going to miss a payment and see a $5 late fee.

I explained to the person, that answered the phone, that I didn’t want to miss the payment and asked if the payment was processed on the old card. She didn’t see a payment and told me we could wait until next week to see if the payment will process. I told her I didn’t want to pay the extra $5 and she replied that she wouldn’t charge me that anyway because I had never paid late.

What caught my attention was when she told me that the trash company now had hundreds of accounts that were delinquent. She said it was a real effort to account for those who were late.

Our trash service is $22.50 per month and if folks can’t keep up with that, we’re in trouble.

I guess my expectations of humanity are way overrated. People lived way beyond their means and now the chickens are home to roost.

Credit-card and car-loan delinquencies are at their highest point in more than a decade​

Consumer debt keeps climbing, and the strain is showing in the mounting number of car-loan and credit-card delinquencies, according to new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

While many U.S. consumers’ finances are holding up, Tuesday’s data shows that some troubled pockets are forming, with lower-income households and younger consumers falling behind faster, researchers say.

Total household debt, including mortgages, car loans, credit cards and student loans, climbed to $17.5 trillion in the fourth quarter, according to the New York Fed’s quarterly report on household debt.
As inflation rates cool, New York Fed researchers note that is a roughly 1% quarterly rate of growth, which is on par with the previous quarter.

But researchers are particularly watching credit-card balances and car loans, for which transitions into delinquency keep climbing above prepandemic levels. “This signals increased financial stress, especially among younger and lower-income households,” Wilbert van der Klaauw, an economic research adviser at the New York Fed, said in a statement.

And while delinquencies are rising for all demographics, the researchers said credit-card delinquencies are particularly pronounced among millennials — the generation born between 1980 and 1994 — and among the lowest quartile of households by income, whose debts and basic expenses eat up a larger share of household funds.

Those debts are also pressing on households as student-loan payments resume. This quarter, student-loan balances were essentially flat, gaining $2 billion to stand at $1.6 trillion by the New York Fed’s count.

Consumers tacked on an additional $50 billion in credit-card debt during the fourth quarter, which includes the holiday shopping season. Americans’ card balances now stand at $1.13 trillion.

During the fourth quarter, 8.5% of credit-card debt became 30 or more days past due and 6.3% flowed into serious delinquency, meaning it was at least 90 days past due.
The second quarter of 2011 was the last time serious delinquency rates were higher, New York Fed data shows.

The percentages are on an annualized basis.

Car-loan balances have climbed to $1.6 trillion​

Meanwhile, car-loan balances added another $12 billion to climb to $1.6 trillion in the fourth quarter.

For car loans, 7.6% of debt became 30 days late and 2.6% became 90 days late. The second quarter of 2010 was the last time the share of car-loan debt was higher for delinquencies that were at least 90 days behind.

The car-loan delinquencies underscore the high cost of cars these days, particularly for buyers with lower credit scores.

Car buyers with low credit scores who need financing face steep borrowing costs, with interest rates on new-car loans for subprime borrowers ranging from 17% to 22% last year, according to Fitch Ratings.

During the fourth quarter, nearly 16% of people who needed financing to buy a new car were going to spend at least $1,000 monthly, not including car-insurance costs.
The average transaction price on a new car as of December was $48,759, according to Cox Automotive.

Like many aspects of the economy right now, when it comes to debt, mixed signals point toward strengths as well as weaknesses. Although delinquencies are increasing, the New York Fed numbers show that more household debt is current compared with just before the start of the pandemic in early 2020.

nearly force feeding young people student loans and easy access to cards has been a big part of the problem - then having an idiot promise to pay student loans off compounds the problem. personal finance/responsibility should be required courses in public schools and freshman college. for my part - I use credit cards for everything to get flyer miles and cash back - and set them up to auto pay every month - will never spend more than I have available to pay. I will borrow money on a car or house if the interest rate is low [just paid off a 1.9% car loan] some people say "what if I can't pay it off" - THEN DON'T DO IT

 

[Decoligny]

I have a credit card that enables me to reserve a hotel room and rent a car if needed.
I pay for pretty much everything I buy with it.
I pay it off totally at least once a month, sometimes more than that.
It give me the credit card protections on purchases, and more protection from fraud than a debit card. It also gives me cash back on purchases.
Only debt I currently have is my mortgage.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Sex, money and credit cards... wow. However sex and money there are correlations. As for cards been tracking my credit with Experian's reports. I have three cards, two of which I never use. They advised me that I should use them to increase my score. I always pay the balance in full. My score dropped due to "credit utilization" and they wanted to me to get cards with a higher limit. I didn't. So last month I made a somewhat frivolous purchase which I normally would use a different card that was above the card's limit by $99 (the card limit is way less than the card I normally use.) The bill came through, paid it in full. My score dropped by 46 points. This month my score should spring back up but my conclusions is they want you to increase the amount of revolving credit. The banks, the government and your employer wants to enslave you with debt.

 

[bubbaturbo]

We are being set up here, & many other countries, for a financial crisis. The government will come in to save the day. Answer: CBDC , Central Bank Digital Currency, w/ attending “top down” money control on an individual level…..Social Credit Score. ie…If the fed don’t like what you post ( yes, all of us here ) or where / what you spend your money on ( ditto ) , then they can freeze your accounts or lock you out of your accounts, or minor punishments such as restricting your travel distances etc. China is the current working model.
Hate to think this is possible, but this well along in the planning stages. The debt America has now can Only be Forgiven, never paid back, & the Forgiveness Grace Government Solution will be CBDC, with $$$ deposited into your bank account, all Digital of course…….Pretend money.

Nope.

 

[retrieverman]

The American people as a whole are complete morons. When I first got out into the world and started buying stuff, a vehicle was financed for no more than 5 years, but now, 72 and 84 month auto loans are the norm. The automakers and banks figured out that people that get the new car smell in their nose don’t care about the price of the car as long as they can make the payments, so they adjusted the length of the loan to make the payments affordable to the buyer. Nevermind that the dumb@SS buyer will be upside down as soon as they drive off the lot.
Credit cards are worse, because they basically let you pay whatever you want every month and still rack up charges and compound that interest.

The debt system is broke beyond repair and will never be fixed, because the banks and credit card companies are making way too much money and are too powerful.

 

[Hangfire]

We carry credit cards just in case we are out and about and need them for something or if we order something online but as soon as the bill hits the mailbox it gets paid in full.

Got a letter in the mail from the card company a couple of years back informing us that they reduced our card limit by 10 or 15K because we weren't using it enough which suited me just fine.....it's still got around 20K on it which is way more than we need for walking around emergency money.