The Mortgage or The Credit Cards – Surprising Choices Some Consumer Make

29 March, 2010 (16:04) | Consumer Debt

I don’t know how things work in your home, but for us, paying our mortgage is the Number 1 priority on our list of bills to pay every month. Surprisingly, some consumers are deciding that they would rather pay their credit card bills instead of their mortgage.

The we we figure it, we can live without a telephone, satellite TV and even electricity if we had to, but we have really grown fond of having a roof over our heads! Fortunately, we have not had to make any touch choices like that, but having been through some difficult financial times in the past, it’s easy to understand the anxiety and fear that results when you realize you cannot pay your bills.

In an article from February that appeared in U.S. News & World Report, it’s revealed that an increasing number of consumers are indeed deciding that their credit card payments take precedence over their mortgage payment.

The article points out that some people are more reluctant to give up their credit cards since they can be used to purchase staples such as food and clothing. I suppose if things are that desperate, it might make sense to hang onto the cards and walk away from the house. At least you’ll be able to eat. In theory, anyway.

One wonders what reaction some credit card companies might have when they learn that one of their customers had their home foreclosed on. The credit bureaus make millions by keeping track of just about everyone’s financial history, and it seems unlikely that something as major as foreclosure will go unnoticed for long.

I personally know of some credit card companies that have cut back credit limits. Not because a payment was missed or late or anything like that. Simply because they didn’t care for the amount of debt a consumer was carrying on their credit cards.

This may be something that people find out the hard way. Being thrown our of your home is one thing, but having your credit card limits cut makes matters that much worse.

For now, we’ll continue to make paying our mortgage a priority. For us it just makes sense, and with new regulations and programs designed to prevent people from losing their homes, it can take longer these days than ever for a foreclosure to actually remove you from your home, giving you valuable extra time to find a job or some other way to pay your bills.