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None. We only use our credit cards to build credit. Anything we charge, we pay off the same month.

We have no consumer debt. We heavily use our credit card for everything that's not a bill and needs to be paid with cash. That way we benefit from the cash back. And we pay it off in full each month. I love our system because I never need to worry about our spending and making sure between two of us that there's enough in our checking. It's much more predictable when just bills get paid from it.

@CottonCandy: You're not alone I'm too embarrassed to even vote in the poll, haha. It has taken a toll me being in grad school, coming straight from a job that barely paid, and before I was in the Peace Corps. Very little opportunity to save money when you are only paid $250/month as a PC volunteer. My DH has recently immigrated from another country, and doesn't have his work permit yet, which means it's me, my student loans, and (small) graduate stipend keeping us afloat....needless to say, I am carrying a bit of consumer CC debt, and I'm not proud. Luckily, I graduate in 40-ish days, and hope to be quite aggressive at paying things down once I find employment and DH is legally able to work.

Zero. We use our credit card to pay all monthly bills and expenses but they're paid off each month.

@MediaNaranja & @Mrs.Wagon: Ahh glad I'm not alone, but not glad that we are all in this situation

Stressful is definitely the word to describe cc debt. We are trying really hard to dig our way out but it sometimes feels like it will take foreverrrrr!

We just paid off 1 cc that had a balance around $1100 (I needed a root canal/crown August of last year and already maxed out my dental for the year - eekl!)

So, all we have right now is around $1300 on a department store card. We bought a new mattress set on a no-interest-until-2015 deal. So, yes we have some consumer debt, but it's interest free until 2015 (so as long as we pay off the balance by Sept 2015 we're good). It's a completely manageable monthly payment of about $40, and it makes no sense to pay off the balance early since it's interest free!

Now, my student loans...that's another story :-\

We pay off all our credit cards every month except for about $5. It actually lowers your credit score to not have a rolling balance so we leave $5 and the interest comes out to be $1 so for $12 it results in a slightly higher credit score. It's not a big deal now since we bought our house but necessary when we bought our car and our house within a 15 month period.

@lisa1783: I didn't know that, thanks for that info

@CottonCandy: Oh, I've had various times in my life when I had more CC debt than I could pay in one month. So you are not alone! I just make it a priority to pay it off ASAP and usually do within a few months.

BUT I have some student loans (luckily, DH has none), and I own a house (that I rent) in a different state that is becoming a total money suck, and we're trying to buy here, so we're going to definitely have debt.

And these days, mortgage debt isn't as safe as it used to be. There's always the chance that there will be another market fall-out and then home values will fall, and we could be upside down on not one, but TWO houses.

So yeah, a couple thousand on a CC would probably be preferable to that, right?

Wow you guys are definitely not America's norm! I read somewhere that America's average household credit card debt is somewhere around $15,000. I can totally see this, as I have some friends with a high credit card debt. I also once started out post-college with almost $8,000 in debt, and I had paid it off, but I still have around $2,000 to go, and these are mostly from over Christmas, when I put DH's present, my mom's and mother-in-law's present (iPads all around!) on my card instead of paying for it outright because I have a bad habit of thinking, oh it'll be better if I pay it off little by little, I don't want to spend that much right now. I ended up charging $2000 on my card I swear, it's the LAST time I am going to do something like this! I should be debt-free in about 5 months though! And DH has no debt.

We have a lot of cc debt but pay it off every month, so I just it less than 1000.... It varies each month because we charge practically everything and get our reward points...