Here are some stats I pulled - take them for what you will. Averages can be skewed, but increases are telling, either way.
The avergae cardholder's outstanding balance is $4,400-up 123 percent in only a decade, according to the Nilson Report, while personal income rose 72 percent. Meanwhile, the government recently reported that personal savings have fallen to the lowest monthly level in history.
Category: Credit Card
Sub Category: Balances
Reporting Pub: U.S. News and World Report
Pub Date: 3/19/01
Article Title: Digging Your Way Out of Debt
Article Author: Paul J. Lim and Matthew Benjamin
Source: The Nilson Report
Today (2001), the typical U.S. household carries an average credit-card balance of $7,500 up from less than $3,000 in 1990.
Category: Credit Card
Sub Category: Debt
Reporting Pub: My Generation (Sep-Oct 2001)
Pub Date: 10/1/01
Article Title: Drowning in Debt
Article Author: Gary Belsky
Credit card spending jumped 8.1% in the first half of the year, and nearly 5% of consumers are late with credit card payments, according to industry newsletter The Nilson Report. Home foreclosures have hit a 30-year high. Personal bankruptcies are at record levels.
Category: Credit Card
Sub Category: Spending
Reporting Pub: USA Today
Pub Date: 9/13/02
Article Title: Guidelines can help debt load
Article Author:
Source: The Nilson Report
Source URL:
http://www.usatoday.com
For most of the college students polled by the Institute for Higher Education Policy in 1998, credit cards were principally a convenience, not a passport to an unaffordable lifestyle; 82% of them carried monthly debts of lass than $1,000. These small debts mean that most students -- 59% -- were able to pay their charge-card balances in full every month. The proportion of the population at large that pays in full each month is only about 40%.
Category: Credit Card
Sub Category: Students
Reporting Pub: usatoday.com
Pub Date: 7/30/01
Article Title: Teen credit cards actually teach responsibility
Article Author: Robin Marantz Henig
Source: Institute for Higher Education Policy
Source URL:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment...1-ncguest1.htm
Overall, credit cards are bad. On a case by case basis (such as in your case), one could justify their use - agreed?