40-year-old homeowner says economy doesn’t add up: ‘I’m making the most money I’ve ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck’

News@lemmy.world – 1005 points – 3 months ago

40-year-old homeowner says economy doesn’t add up: ‘I’m making the most money I’ve ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck’

“There's this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing,” says Nikki Cimino, a recruiter in Denver.

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Nikki Cimino, a 40-year-old recruiter living in Denver, said she finally saved up enough to buy a condo last year, but missed out on the ultra-low interest rates that had made homeownership more affordable in the early days of the pandemic. Her 5.25% interest rate pushed her monthly payments to $1,650. After a divorce in 2020, she’s shouldering $4,000 in credit card debt.

It's the credit card debt...

Instead of paying that off since 2020, she saved a down payment and bought an expensive condo. She's wasting a shit ton of money on interest because credit cards are all like 20-30%

Credit cards are predatory, if you ever carry a balance to the next month, that needs to be your highest priority.

Do a transfer to get 0% each year if you have to when recovering from emergencies. But paying credit interest for years is insane.

Holy crap! She was "saving up" to buy a condo instead of using that money to pay off the credit cards? That's absolutely insane. I really feel like society would benefit immensely if there were mandatory financial literacy courses every 4 years, or at least before any major purchases (house, car, etc).

Or just common sense laws against predatory lending by capping interest rates.

Most people don't have a safety net and live paycheck to paycheck.

A huge expense comes up, and rather than get a bank loan at even 8-10%, it goes on a credit card

Companies have a tiny "minimum payment" because they don't want you to pay it off. They want that balance to grow while people ignore it. They don't want it back now, they want thousands more later.

I'm all for interest caps but if the highest they could charge was say 9% they'd just deny credit to tons of people, not give them lower interest debt. I'm okay with that though.

Pretty sure every cc has the minimum payment higher than the interest. If you just stop buying shit you'll pay it off eventually, even if you can only afford the minimum payment. The balance can't grow unless you're still buying shit.

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Also she was apparently planning on low interest rates, but when the rates went up she shrugged and didn't adjust her plans. It's kind of hard feeling sympathy for her. If she'd been hit with an unexpected but unavoidable expense that would be a different matter.

Have you seen the movie Maxed Out? That was pretty eye opening for me.

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Bingo. I never, ever let credit card debt carry over. I'd genuinely rather miss a house payment.

For Denise and Paul Nierzwicki, credit cards are the only way to make ends meet. The couple, ages 69 and 72, respectively, have about $20,000 in debt spread across multiple cards, all with interest rates above 20%.

The trouble started during the pandemic, when Denise lost her job and a business deal for a bar that they owned in their hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, went bad.

They applied for Social Security, which helped, and Denise now works 50 hours a week at a restaurant. Still, they’re barely scraping together the minimum payments for their credit card debt.

Jesus. I don’t see how this gets un-fucked without a massive wave of defaults. And that’ll just lead to a different kind of fucked.

Someone page Caleb Hammer!

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