from
endoftheamericandream.com#1 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.
#2 Overall, Americans are carrying a grand total of $798 billion in credit card debt.
#3 If you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent $798 billion by now.
#4 Right now, there are more than 600 million active credit cards in the United States.
#5 Exclusively among households that have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt is an astounding $15,799. That means households without debt were not included in this demographic sample.]
#6 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards. I can't. I have three credit cards, and one charge card. I use one 99% of the time, another only when I travel, and I keep the unused one because I am afraid of the hit to my credit score if I close it.
#7 The average interest rate on a credit card that is carrying a balance is now up to 13.10 percent.
#8 According to the credit card calculator on the Federal Reserve website, if you have a $10,000 credit card balance and you are being charged a rate of 13.10 percent and you only make the minimum payment each time, it will take you 27 years to pay it off and you will end up paying back a total of $21,271.
#9 The length of auto loans in America just keeps getting longer and longer. If you can believe it, 45 percent of all new car loans being made today are for 6 years or more. I cannot believe this. Eight years ago, a typical car loan was for four years. My first and only car loan was paid off in two years.
#10 Approximately 70 percent of all car purchases in the United States involve an auto loan. Only 70%?
#11 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago
#12 Mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP has more than tripled since 1955.
#13 According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, approximately 8 million Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage payments.
#14 Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the United States has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5 percent. Today, it is up around 4.5 percent.
#15 Overall, nearly 29 percent of all homes with a mortgage in the United States are underwater. ACK!
#16 If you can believe it, the mortgage lenders now have more equity in U.S. homes than the American people do. I can believe it. I've cashed out no more than $2200 each of my two refinances, and I'm struggling to keep my equity above 55%. I have more mortgage yesterdays than I have mortgage tomorrows, too.
#17 Medical debt is a major problem for a growing number of Americans. One study discovered that approximately 41 percent of all working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#18 Sadly, the number of Americans that are protected by health insurance continues to decline. An all-time record 49.9 million Americans do not have any health insurance at all right now, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row.
February 13th, 2012 at 06:11 pm 1329156692
#5 - I'm below the average - at about $10K
#7 - My average is about 5.1%
#9 - We're one year in to a 3.5 year auto loan
#13 - We are NOT behind on our mortgage
#15 - But we are underwater
#17 - No medical debt
#18 - We are blessed to be insured
February 13th, 2012 at 06:48 pm 1329158935
#6 - I'm that one. DH too.
#7 - I honestly don't know. We don't carry a balance.
#9 - All three cars are paid off - thankfully.
#15 - Sadly I'm in this group and we feel STUCK.
#17 - No medical debt here
#18 - We have a nice HDHP with a fully funded (by us) HSA. Quite thankful to be able to afford this.
February 13th, 2012 at 08:37 pm 1329165437
#7 The average interest rate is something like 18% but we never carry a balance.
#10 No car loan. Not the prettiest cars in town, but no car loan. That's what my second job paid for.
#11 Darn, I'd like that mortgage down. But I also have too many other likes.
Staggering numbers, Paulette.
February 13th, 2012 at 09:37 pm 1329169041
"#11 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago."
I had a very interesting realization from my father recently. I knew they bought a $150k home and had an *insane* mortgage when they moved to California. BUT, truth was he told me recently they put $5k down on first home (10%?) and rode up significant equity to second home. Though their mortgage was an insane percentage of income for a time (1980s, high interest rates) that was for the short run. They paid off home in their early 50s - mortgage payment was only $400/month or so a few years ago before they paid it off - maybe less than 5% of their income at that point. Meanwhile, they made killings in stock market and housing market in the 80s and 90s.
I thought we had it easier, but I realize we put almost $75,000 cash into our own home, real estate and stock market both sucked eggs for us our first 10 years as adults, and the only saving grace is low interest rates. Inflation doesn't account for $5k down versus $75k down over the course of 20 years or so...
Low interest and tax incentives has only made housing infinitely more expensive. Easy credit was just the tip of the iceberg. No doubt mortgage balances are several times higher than they were 20 years ago. I think would be about that much larger even without the credit bubble.