Despite the budgeting, splurging, the holiday sales, and the inevitable panics over our credit card statements, our latest Credit Karma data shows consumers overall chipped away at their debts in 2010. Pause for celebration—Whooo!
From January 2010 to December 2010, the average consumer credit card debt fell from $7,925 to $7,404, a 7% drop nationally.
Here are more numbers to showcase the average American’s debt situation in 2010:
- Decreased home mortgage loans 4% to $173,340
- Decreased home equity 4% to $49,803
- Increased auto loans 4% to $15,274
- Increased student loans 10% to $29,016
But what we really want to know, Credit Karma users, is beyond these national averages of debts up and down, how are you personally doing in your financial situation?
The thing is that your finances aren’t isolated to one thing — not your credit card debt and not evern your credit score. Think of your finances as many slices in a pie, and they all need to be in sweet standing if you want it to be whole (the picture is a pizza pie, but stay with us).
Aspects of your finances are all related and impact each other, and one thing can better your whole situation (like a raise in your salary!) and one thing can drag you way down (like a bankruptcy). As happy as we are about Credit Karma users paying down their credit card debts nationally as a whole, what we can’t see is the rising and dropping of all the other factors.
In 2010, in addition to your credit card debt, has your income changed, have you taken on new loans, did you increase your savings, are you investing your money elsewhere, have you dumped old debts, have you gained new ones, has your credit score improved?
Do you have a defining aspect of your financial life that you are focused on improving? For some people it’s their credit score, their credit card debt, or their retirement fund. Leave us some ideas in the comments below.
But what we are really trying to pinpoint is that it’s EVERYTHING. It’s your credit score, your debt total, your income, your good habits, and your bad habits that will ultimately come to define your financial situation. So if you’ve paid down your credit card debt yet haven’t inched up your credit score, or haven’t built your emergency fund, or are dipping into your retirement fund, there’s still work to be done before another dramatic pause for celebration. Let’s keep on it.
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