Americans spend $250 billion a year on credit card interest. That is one quarter of the trillion dollars spent annually on the national debt. Both are a considerable waste of money and will likely lead to not so good outcomes. 
Why do people use credit cards as they do? Some claim it is necessary for living expenses, some just overspend, some may be subject to various pressures like keeping up with the Jones’s, still others make no provision for emergency funds and get trapped in debt. 

SOME MILESTONES are auspicious. Others are not.
This week, the Treasury announced that the federal government’s debt had topped $40 trillion for the first time.
Government debt is nothing new, but the problem is now of more concern, for two reasons. First, the scale has grown. An apples-to-apples way to look at the government’s debt load is to compare it to GDP—the economy’s total annual output. On this basis, outstanding debt now exceeds 100% of GDP,

I’ve never seen this in any financial column anywhere:
I’ve told all my kids and anyone else who’ll listen to setup a HELOC on their home “just in case”. You never know when you’ll need cash, like when you’ve lost your job, and if you ARE jobless you won’t be ABLE to get a HELOC.
Notice I didn’t say Home Equity Loan. There is a difference between the two. I won’t go into that here, you can research that yourself.

Around two years before I retired, I found myself giving a piece of advice to one of my most financially responsible younger employees that felt, quite frankly, absurd: “You need to go out and get a credit card that you don’t want, to charge things to, just to prove you can pay for them.”
She was a great employee, diligent, organized, and disciplined with her money. She lived entirely within her means, used a debit card for everything,

Like everyone, I’m frequently asked at the checkout of drugstores and retail outlets if I have a credit card linked to the store and, if not, why don’t I quickly apply then and there to get a discount or cash bonus when my application is approved?  I was recently tempted by $50 offered at the local chain drugstore, but then I thought about the time and energy to unfreeze my credit score and declined the $50 offer (but I continued to think about it for a short while 😊).

I’ve been getting lots of balance transfer offers from credit card companies. For a small transfer fee of only 4%, I could transfer my debt and receive an interest free period of 12 months to pay it off.
For example, one could transfer $10K, pay a transfer fee of $400, pay $867 over the next 12 months. The payments plus the transfer fee would amount to $10,400, making the true cost of the loan 7.3%. (The higher interest rate is due to the ever shrinking loan balance).

Suzie and I are visiting family and enjoying the Victorian grandeur of the coastal towns of southern England, in particular near Brighton where my brother-in-law recently purchased his first home. He’s been expressing nervousness about the new experience of having a mortgage. While chatting during the evening I’ve tried to soothe his mind with a version of this, I admit, slightly left-field argument. It seemed to help him and I thought I’d share my thoughts.
When my wife Suzie retired in June last year,

Credit cards certainly help drive our economy and drive some people into financial ruin. 
As I stated more than once, my philosophy of personal finance is simply save first, spend the rest but never carry a credit card balance. 
My American Express card was recently cancelled by Amx. It was a business card and they said since I no longer ran a business I couldn’t keep it. Even though I had the card since 1986, I had to apply for a new one which I did and was approved virtually instantly.

Our earliest days as independent fledgling adults, working our first job, living in our own place, are hard to forget. I still recall my first apartments in surprising detail. As I now watch my daughter live through her own such experiences, these memories are flooding back.
Mine are mostly happy, as I lived and worked through the first part of my lifetime happiness smile curve. There were a few rare exceptions. Buying my first car was one of them.

American credit card debt just broke the trillion dollar level.  Taking on  debt, “ bad” debt, credit cards , auto loans and similar, is a like attending a raucous party ,  taking in too much alcohol , etc.
The aftermath , paying off high interest loans, is like the worst hangover, ever. It can take decades to recover from it.
Often,  too much alcohol can kill you, quickly or long term, * alas , debt can kill you,

My grandson is a senior in college. He has taken some student loans for which the financial resources exist (529 plan) to pay them in full upon graduation. My question is this:
From the perspective of building a strong credit history, should he pay the loans in full after the grace period, or should he make payments for a period of time, say a year or two, before paying them in full?
Note, that any money leftover in the 529 plan will be either transferred to a Roth IRA when feasible,

LIKE MANY AMERICANS, Sally found herself caught in a whirlwind of unexpected expenses and mounting credit card debt. It wasn’t lavish vacations or shopping sprees. Rather, it was veterinary bills for her aging dogs.
I conducted a credit-card debt-reduction workshop for Sally. Here’s a glimpse at her finances:

Her Mastercard balance was $12,970 at a hefty 17% interest rate.
Despite that, she had an exceptional credit score of 820.
She also had a $26,000 emergency fund.

My question is which would be better to use to pay down debt a 401k withdrawal (sell stocks) which would raise taxes (SS) at years end significantly a 0% credit card balance transfer (cost 3-5% annually) or a 9.3% home equity loan that hopefully the interest rate goes down next year.  I enjoy reading all your stories about finances and life. thank you.

WHAT WAS MY DAD thinking when he asked me to help him and my mom with their finances? Did he expect me to give him money? Maybe.
Up until that moment, my dad handled the family finances. Both he and Mom were retired, though my mom still worked occasionally as an adjunct professor. My mom assumed things were okay, though I had my suspicions.
One day, I saw a credit card bill that showed a large outstanding balance,

SPENDING ISN’T something I like to do. It doesn’t bring me lasting joy. I prefer just to buy what I need.
For many folks, spending involves borrowing. If spending is your thing, incurring interest charges on credit card debt and car loans probably isn’t a big deal. But to me, borrowing to buy something means I’m overspending. If I can’t afford to pay cash, I shouldn’t buy it.
Borrowing has been the downfall of many.