Obama’s Credit Plan

Forget the mortgage, pay off the credit card.

That seems to be the message Americans are getting from their elected officials as a new study conducted by BillShrink.com finds that 59 percent of Americans are paying off their credit card balances in full every month. That’s an increase of 13 percent from the previous year.

At the end of 2009, card balances also dropped by 12 percent to about $8.5 billion. That is the 15th monthly drop in a row.

Overall, consumer debt has dropped another percent or so in the month of December alone.

As a result of the CARD Act, many account holders are seeing the rise in interest rates and fees on their cards and are motivated to limit them.

Many card holders have simply stopped using their credit cards for daily use while steadily paying down their outstanding balances.

What are some of the things that you are doing to avoid getting charged extra fees on your card(s)? Have you been paying down balances, too?