Skip to Content
Budgeting For Dummies
book

Budgeting For Dummies

by Athena Valentine Lent
May 2023
Beginner
320 pages
7h 58m
English
For Dummies
Content preview from Budgeting For Dummies

Chapter 15

Keeping Tabs on Credit Card Spending

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Discussing how to use credit cards when budgeting

Bullet Building credit without taking on additional debt

Bullet Finding out how to take advantage of credit card benefits.

As I write this, the average American household has an estimated $8,942 of credit card debt. Using credit cards can help you when your bills are bigger than your paycheck (such as during times of inflation), but it can hurt you as well.

As I explain in Chapter 10, credit card debt is a revolving debt, which means you don’t have to pay your balance (loan) every month. Instead, you can charge your maximum credit limit and have to worry about making only your minimum payment. Your credit card debt is also considered an unsecured loan, which means you don’t have to put up collateral like a car or home to get the loan.

Only having to pay the minimum amount for a payment sounds dreamy, and it is. You can charge $1,000 and only have to worry about paying $25 back next month? Score! You can worry about paying the rest later, right?

Remember Your credit card company is counting ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Personal Finance For Dummies, 9th Edition

Personal Finance For Dummies, 9th Edition

Eric Tyson
Accounting For Dummies, 7th Edition

Accounting For Dummies, 7th Edition

John A. Tracy, Tage C. Tracy
Project Management For Dummies, 6th Edition

Project Management For Dummies, 6th Edition

Jonathan L. Portny, Stanley E. Portny

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781119985143Purchase Link