It's not at all uncommon for households to be swimming in more that twice as much credit card debt. But just because a $15,000 balance isn't rare doesn't mean it's a good thing. Credit card debt is seriously expensive. Most credit cards charge between 15% and 29% interest, so paying down that debt should be a priority.
A minimum payment of 3% a month on $15,000 worth of debt means 227 months (almost 19 years) of payments, starting at $450 a month. By the time you've paid off the $15,000, you'll also have paid almost as much in interest ($12,978 if you're paying the average interest rate of 14.96%) as you did in principal.
Key takeaways
Debt-to-income ratio is your monthly debt obligations compared to your gross monthly income (before taxes), expressed as a percentage. A good debt-to-income ratio is less than or equal to 36%. Any debt-to-income ratio above 43% is considered to be too much debt.
You can buy a house with credit card debt. However, they will want the minimum payment amount for each debt. Then they will look at your income per month and determine your debt to income ratio. If it's over a specific threshold it could make it harder. I would focus on paying off as much debt as you can first.
High-interest credit card debt can devastate even the most thought-out financial plan. U.S. consumers carry $6,501 in credit card debt on average, according to Experian data, but if your balance is much higher—say, $20,000 or beyond—you may feel hopeless.
If you cannot afford to pay your minimum debt payments, your debt amount is unreasonable. The 28/36 rule states that no more than 28% of a household's gross income should be spent on housing and no more than 36% on housing plus other debt.
Wealthy family borrows against its assets' growing value and uses the newly available cash to live off or invest in other assets, like rental properties. The family does NOT owe taxes on its asset-leveraged loans because the government doesn't tax borrowed money.
A debt that has a high interest rate or fees could also be considered bad debt, even if you use the debt for an essential purchase. One way to compare loans is to calculate the annual percentage rate (APR) of the various options to see which one will cost more on an annualized basis.
1% of the balance plus interest: It would take 29.5 years or 354 months to pay off $10,000 in credit card debt making only minimum payments. You would pay a total of $19,332.21 in interest over that period.
A debt doesn't generally expire or disappear until its paid, but in many states, there may be a time limit on how long creditors or debt collectors can use legal action to collect a debt.
It will take 32 months to pay off $15,000 with payments of $600 per month, assuming the average credit card APR of around 18%. The time it takes to repay a balance depends on how often you make payments, how big your payments are and what the interest rate charged by the lender is.
If it's between 43% to 50%, take action to reduce your debt load; consulting a nonprofit credit counseling agency may be helpful. If it's 50% or more, your debt load is high risk; consider getting advice from a bankruptcy attorney.
Bad debt is an amount of money that a creditor must write off if a borrower defaults on a loan. If a creditor has a bad debt on the books, it becomes uncollectible and is recorded as a charge-off.
Debt is simply money that you bought, and the price of the money is the interest or whatever other fees you're paying to buy the money. That's all it is. And one of the things I say about debt is that paying off debt doesn't make you rich. Meaning that once you pay off the debt, you don't start making money from it.
Good debt is money you borrow for something that has the potential to increase in value or expand your potential income. For example, a mortgage may help you buy a home that can appreciate in value. Student loans may increase your future income by helping you get the job you've wanted.
And even for people who may not be able to leverage a Dali painting hanging in their foyers, debt can be a useful tool to keep their wealth engines running if it comes cheaply enough relative to other opportunities, keeps their assets working for them and, above all, if the risks are understood and tolerable.
Key Takeaways
From a pure risk perspective, debt ratios of 0.4 (40%) or lower are considered better, while a debt ratio of 0.6 (60%) or higher makes it more difficult to borrow money.
“No matter what your income, $100,000 in debt is a very significant amount. The first step to take is to acknowledge it is a problem and that you need to take action now; it's not going to disappear on its own.”
For example, a general rule of thumb is if roughly half of your monthly income is committed to debt payments, there's a good chance you have too much debt. Your debt-to-income ratio (DTI) is a reliable benchmark for evaluating the health of your personal indebtedness.
Running up $50,000 in credit card debt is not impossible. About two million Americans do it every year. Paying off that bill?