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Her money comes to you through PRX. Hey everybody it's Jean Chatsky. Thanks so much for joining us today for a special

mailbag only episode. We are going through our inbox. We are tackling all of

your questions. Catherine Tuggle is with me in the studio. Hey Catherine.

Hi. So today we are tackling credit cards and debt.

Yep.

Questions we get a lot of.

Well, and I'm not surprised because the levels of debt are going up up.

I mean, part of it is consumer confidence and it's great that people are feeling good.

It's great that wages have been rising and that interest rates have stayed low but across pretty much every

category people are taken on a lot of debt.

It's true.

55% of all Americans with credit cards have debt and for people who carry a balance the national average is 4,293

according to Experian.

Wow.

Wow and the studies that we get when you're me or when you're Catherine you get a lot of studies about spending during the holiday season and a number of them have pointed to the fact that this year in particular it seems that people are more willing to take on additional debt to give their families, give their children the holidays that they've been wanting.

And that's a stat that always makes me feel a little sick to my stomach.

It's kind of like when you hear about people going into debt for weddings,

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