LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The holiday shopping season is upon us and as much as we love buying gifts for others around the holidays people can get carried away when it comes to buying the perfect gift.
Some people may even go into credit card debt or rack more debt up.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, credit card balances in 2023 are at $1.6 trillion and the total household debt rose by 1.3 percent to reach $17.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2023.
Ty Anderson a business and credit expert explained how those statistics alone are the very reason he wants to educate people on how to get that number down.
"It's taking care of future self, taking care of you because we might want to stretch the dollar now. I mean we stretch the dollar now it's gonna snap back later so we just want to be mindful of what we're doing with our finances and just make better moves," Anderson said.
When going shopping Anderson said that knowing your credit score beforehand, knowing how much your limit is, and how much you can spend at stores before walking in can make a world of difference.
"If you go out there, know your budget. You already know how much you want to spend on family, spend on friends like I know what's what needs to come out. If I know what needs to come out then when I go places, I'm only going to swipe on what I need to be swiping on," Anderson explained.
He said that having discipline when it comes to spending is key because our impulse decisions most times take us down the rabbit hole of getting into debt.
"You take your costs and put that up with your income and you say, oh, I can make this happen or I'm in a negative, I might not be able to make this happen. But let me make some adjustments. and that's kind of creating a budget for yourself or a holiday budget," Anderson said.