what's the most debt you ever accrued on credit cards.?

not a 0% interest that you used on purpose to self-finance something.

I think mine was $20,000 early in my first marriage. Got caught up when we both started making more money.

In 2008, my nice job and salary went away when the company I worked for suddenly collapsed. ($1.2 billion book value)

I saw an open market potential for distributing a specialty battery, but getting a loan without a job wasn't going to happen. I broke all the basic rules and funded the startup of my new battery sales business with credit cards. Ran them up to $30k but had them paid off in 13 months. Almost seventeen years later, we are still making money.

The pursuit of happiness baby!

Nice!

I think the most I've ever had on my CC was around $3500 and that was because I just bought a $2500 grill and used my CC for the rewards.

Only thing that goes on my CC is fuel and Amazon purchases (5% cash back). It is always paid off at the end of the month. Lately it's only been Amazon purchases because I use QT Pay now for fuel and save $0.25 per gallon which makes a big difference when you have to use premium gasoline.

Besides my truck and house, which have low interest rates, I refuse to be in debt. If I don't have the cash in the bank to cover a purchase I will not buy something.

In the 94, wife was terminal. Medical bills, even with insurance was smothering. I think I had 18 to 20K on CCs for living expenses. Took a couple of years get clear and five to get on track to carrying no balance.

None

I think it was about 3K back in the 80`s. Wife always paid the bills. I saw the CC bill one day and blew a gasket. Had over 10K in savings and she was just paying the minimum. We paid the CC balance off and have never had any CC debit since. She still pays all of our bills and has done a great job.

Recently put $13k in pre-paid funeral plans on a CC. Haven’t paid a cent in CC interest in the 14 years that I’ve been married. Every bill and almost every purchase goes on a CC and paid off monthly. Wife is much better with $ than I ever was.

Highest we had was $40k. Always pay them off every month though.

I don't consider it debt if you're paying it off every month.

When I was young and dumb(er) we got between 15-20k on them and didn't have the money to write the check for it. It was a 2 year dig out. We did it twice before we both agreed it was dumb and we took the approach if we can't afford it then we can't afford it. My wife is a saver and I'm a spender...I never had a savings account until I met her. She's still that way, won't hardly spend money on anything. When it comes to money...the 99 problems statement is definitely accurate for me.

Exact same boat. My wife has always been a saver. When we first met, we both worked at Sonic drive in as carhops. Everyday I'd take my tips and just blow them on nonsense. I was over at her house one time and she was putting her tips up. She kept them in a shoebox under her bed. She probably had IDK $750 bucks in there looked like a lot because they were all small bills. Growing up we lived paycheck to paycheck and I had never seen anyone actually save money and it changed me. Ever since I've been a saver. I'm still a spender, but I make sure I have enough savings to get out of a jam if need be, but these days I just can't find anything I really want to spend my money on so my savings keeps going up instead of down so that is a good thing

Sucks for my wife though, she saved all that money under her bed and her little brother stole it and spent it on fireworks with his friends when he was around 13-14 years old,

She... Was... Pissed....

Dave Ramsey comes to the THF for financial advice.

None. During the slim years the only way I ever visited a rest-runt was when I was washing dishes. Beans and rice. Beater cars. Diyed everything. Lived like no one else in my circle. Dang if that didn't work...

Home of the one upper

5% cash back!!!!!?? What??

I'm curious, got to be some kind of promo....

Kinda the rest of the story about me paying off a large CC debt.

Of course, I stop all CC transaction and went to cash for every transaction. One thing about paying off CC card debt is everyone wants you to have their card. You get preapproved advertisements almost daily.

Well after being a cash only guy for years, I am on social outing with the future Mrs. LZ. For some reason I decide to be Joe Cool, and pay for dinner with a zero balance CC. After several months of receiving the same advisement, I ripped it open in frustration to find months of interest and late charges for the dinner I had charged. Yes, a $ lunch cost me $$.

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. We put our wedding and honeymoon on a credit card. We both can’t stand interest/being in debt, so we would do the free balance transfers every time the promo offers were to expire. It was a real pain in the butt, but we got through it.

Now a days I run just about everything through a Scheels card and just have it set up to pay in full every month. The reward credits keep me in fishing lures

It is a Prime Visa through Capital One. I've had it for probably 10 years now and it has never changed so not a promo. I do get emails on promos on travel and different things and if I plan on purchasing travel at that time I'll activate them and get the 5-6% back on my trip. You can cash your points out for cash or just spend them on amazon same as cash money. There are several other things on the chase site you can buy with them too, but I just put them back in amazon because I purchase A LOT from amazon.

Here is a break down of the different points from my dashboard. These have never changed only ones that change are the promos but they expire after 30 days of activation.

When I turned 16 I got a cc for gas. Mom said never charge anything you can’t pay for and always pay the bill at the end of the month. Mom is a pretty smart lady I heeded her advice. Zero for me.

SO my wife has Prime Visa, but through Chase, similar rewards -
Earn unlimited 5% back at Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, and on Chase Travel purchases with an eligible Prime membership, unlimited 2% back at gas stations, restaurants, and on local transit and commuting (including rideshare), and unlimited 1% back on all other purchases.

So do you get 5% on fuel as well with the Cap One issued card? May be worth getting it if so....

Mine is through Chase as well. Probably exact same card.

Sorry I just reread my post and it did look like I meant I get 5% cash back on fuel and amazon, but I was specifically meaning only reason I buy things from Amazon on my CC instead of regular bank account was because of the 5% cash back.

So only 2% from gas stations.

Since I only get fuel from QT I use their QT pay for 25 cents off per gallon.

2% still is decent!

Didn’t know about the QT pay, will see if they do it in my area.

It is definitely worth it.

I saw it outside their door back in November of last year. I already had their app because I order their breakfast protein bowls ahead of time for pickup. All I had to do was agree to terms and conditions to activate it. I thought the .25 cents was just for the month of November but here it is March and I just filled up yesterday and I'm still getting the discount. I'm definitely not going to say anything about it LOL.

I always fill up with about 50 miles until empty which is right around 32 gallons.

I save $8 per fill up and I fill up probably twice a month with normal driving. $16 a month is $192 over the year.

Now let's do the same math with the 2% back from the CC. Normally cost about $95-$100 to fill up my truck with premium. Lets just say $100 filling up twice a month for a year is $2400x.02%=$48

The QT pay works out to a 8% savings vs the 2% cash back on CC. I hope QT just forgets about it and leaves it.