Comments on: How Long Can You Live On Your Credit Cards?

By: Sheena

Sheena — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:55:17 +0000

First let me say I love this site. I’m a recent graduate, battling with student loans and high credit card balances. All together with my three credit cards at there highest available credit, I have 20k….. I’m half that in debt. So 10k to work with, monthly expenses roughly $2,000. Guess I could make it for five months. (Maybe)

By: Ulysses

Ulysses — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 02:29:36 +0000

7 months here. 8 if I really stretch it. One credit card.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:59:58 +0000

I have one credit card. I think I can go about two months on my credit limit. My credit limit is quite paltry: in a year I put 3-4x my credit limit on it. Yes, I always pay my balance. I don’t know why they haven’t kicked me out, they can’t possibly be profiting from me. (Or I should say, “Woohoo! Debt-ridden individuals who pay the minimum payment are subsidizing me!”)

By: James

James — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:09:09 +0000

Also, recently I called one of my credit card company to reduce the credit limit (yes, got hit with credit card fraud too). They would NOT reduce, giving me some kind of lame excuse. I guess they are not scared yet. It is Capital one with cash rewards.

By: James

James — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:06:30 +0000

ah, but has anyone consider CORBRA (or some kind of health insurance) as part of their monthly expense? Having to face that reality recently make me realize that my monthly expense is not as low as I believe. Last time I check it is well over $1000 / month for a family.

By: Ted Valentine

Ted Valentine — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:14:14 +0000

Did doing this exercise make anyone fearful of becoming a credit fraud victim?

By: Ted Valentine

Ted Valentine — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 02:12:04 +0000

Interesting question.

I have an equity line (came with a credit card!), so I’ll count that.

Lessee — I’m gonna say 37 months. 17 without the equity line.

That seems like too much. I should do something about that.

This assumes I make no payments and no interest accrues, which is false. So it would be less.

By: Pelon

Pelon — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:15:59 +0000

I think my limits are way too high. I could probably go 12-18 months on my available balances, and I only have two cards. If I hadn’t closed a separate card a few years ago, I could probably go 24-30 months. The only time I could ever conceive of getting even close to my limit is if I was in REAL financial trouble.

I haven’t had a balance cut, but they did change the way they calculated the minimum interest rate. The old formula was prime + 1.75%. They’ve since change it so that the rate doesn’t go below 7.75%. I would guess this is in response to a variety of issues including concerns about overall credit quality, the inability to make money at such a low rate, and the new credit card rules.

It drives me crazy that Congress, Treasury, the President, and the Fed all seem obsessed with “getting things back to normal”. What if now is normal and before was abnormal? They don’t want to discuss that possiblity. We would all like housing, employment, and asset prices to go back to where they were, but if that was an unreasonable state, the government’s efforts are useless at best.

By: TFB

TFB — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:59:48 +0000

Six years! They are very trusting, aren’t they? I thought they were already generous in giving me six months.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:47:41 +0000

Total credit card limits is somewhere North of $150K. Monthly expenses are about $2K. Could live for more than 6 years on credit alone.

I did have a credit card cut my limit recently. It was a card that I’d opened for arbitrage purposes, and have never used. The limit was cut from $25,000 to $500.