I like to talk a lot about wedding finances, specifically about how getting into debt for your wedding is serious business. Starting off your marriage with thousands of dollars in credit card (or other) debt is a crappy way to begin a marriage. I know this from experience and it’s a journey that I hope none of you ever experience.
I know a lot of you are using plastic to finance your big day. It’s easy. It’s convenient. You can make small-ish monthly payments. No biggie, right? Wrong. A small loan can morph into a ridiculously long and expensive ordeal if you’re not careful.
To help you understand what you’re committing to with a credit card wedding, I’ve launched this handy little calculator that shows the number of years and the total cost (loan + interest) of a paying with your card. You can find it under Tools in the navigation menu or by clicking here.
Here’re some sobering numbers:
If you charge $10,000 at the current average credit card rate of 16.8%, it will take you 46 months to pay off the debt with a minimum of $300/month payments.
