CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — It's very stressful to be in debt.
The amount of money the average household owes is only rising.
New numbers from the company NerdWallet show show household debt is rising more than 6 percent.
And where people owe the most money is shifting.
Mortgage debt increased the most last year.
But this type of debt can be more complicated than what the numbers show.
“It is technically considered debt that you would take on, for what is hopefully an appreciating asset something that's going to gain value over time, that does not always happen, but it does happen in in many instances,” said Sara Rathner, a credit analyst for NerdWallet. “But you know really rather than just think of your house as an investment it's also a place for you and your family to live, and so you are investing and having that security.”
Meanwhile, credit card debt is down by almost 14 percent.
This decrease is partly explainable because of the help people got from stimulus checks last year.
NerdWallet found that 22 percent of Americans used some of that money to pay credit card debt.
But now, it doesn't look like we'll see this kind of relief in 2022.
Which could lead to more people leaning on credit limits to make ends meet.
