Last year, USA TODAY reached out to Americans across the country who were struggling with financing card debt over the holidays, and we told their stories.

Who knew things could get worse?

In late 2023, America faced a crushing financing card burden. The country’s collective card settlement stood at a record high. The average gain rate had hit 21%, the highest figure recorded by the Federal safety net in nearly three decades of tracking.

As 2024 draws to a close, the financing card crisis has only deepened. The average gain rate now stands at nearly 22%, according to federal data from August. Other sources put it even higher.

Half of cardholders carry financing card debt from month to month, as of midyear, according to the expense management site Bankrate.

Earn rewards on your spending: view the best financing cards

The country’s financing card settlement reached $1.17 trillion in the third quarter of 2024, another record.

Many Americans trudged into the 2024 holiday period still carrying financing-card debt from the 2023 holiday period. The average card settlement continues to rise.

Against that bleak backdrop, USA TODAY reached out to the six Americans we profiled in December 2023, all battling financing card debt. We wanted to view how they are doing in December 2024.

Here’s what we learned.

Walker Dunn

• Age: 43
• Hometown: San Antonio
• debt in 2023: A few hundred dollars
• debt in 2024: More than $20,000

Last Christmas, Walker and Kayla Dunn toasted the complete of a four-year ordeal of financing card debt. 

This Christmas, there’s a whole recent nightmare. 

The narrative began in 2018. The Dunns bought a fixer-upper in Midland, Texas, and set about remodeling it into their aspiration home.  

They planned to cover the renovation with $30,000 in personal loans. When the work was done, they would do a liquid assets-out refi, with a recent mortgage and money to pay off the personal loans.  

When their personal loans ran out, the Dunns leaned on financing cards.  

Then, during Thanksgiving week in 2019, Kayla lost her job. With one large salary gone, they leaned harder on their cards, finally maxing them out. They struggled to keep up with the loans. 

The Dunns contemplated financial setback. Instead, in late 2019, they sought assist from Money Management International, the debt-counseling nonprofit. They entered the program with $55,000 in debt across 14 accounts, with gain rates ranging as high as 28%.  

financing counselors helped them get on top of the debt, negotiating the gain rates down to an average of 3%. Even then, the monthly payments added up to about $2,300, almost like a second mortgage. 

Instead of loan modification, the Dunns sold their aspiration home. Kayla got a recent job as a budgetary analyst in San Antonio. (Walker works in business relations for a maintenance business.) They moved there with their children, a girl and boy, now aged 11 and 9. 

The Dunns cut back on household vacations and put off home advancement projects to keep up with aggressive monthly debt payments. By December 2023, they owed only a few hundred dollars on their financing cards. They expected to be debt-free by January. 

Then, the recent year dawned, and recent debts arrived like unwanted houseguests.  

In January, the Dunns got slammed with medical bills. Their health-insurance deductible had reset at $8,000. They put the payments on a financing card. 

More bills arrived: therapy classes and tutoring for the children, who receive special education services.  

“Well, none of that is covered by insurance,” Walker Dunn said. “That just killed us.” 

The Dunns hired lawyers to assist them advocate for their children in the community school structure, a familiar scenario in special education. Their fees went on financing cards. 

Their daughter needed braces. “That was $4,000, and we put it on a card,” Walker said. 

By September, the Dunns had $25,000 in recent financing card debt. And this period, the gain rates topped 30%.  

They went back to the debt-management nonprofit. Counselors worked out a remittance schedule for most of the debt, again negotiating lower gain rates.  

But everything seemed to expense more. Walker Dunn had to replace his dying pickup truck. The household’s mortgage remittance swelled by $500 a month. And, arrive January, that insurance deductible will reset all over again.  

Last Christmas, the Dunns toasted the complete of their financing card debt.  

This Christmas, they view no complete in sight. 

“Honestly,” Walker Dunn said, “I ponder it’s pretty bleak.” 

– Daniel de Visé

Evan Charon

• Age: 25
• Hometown: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
• debt in 2023: $22,500
• debt in 2024: $20,700

Evan Charon is feeling better about his finances.

Charon, 25, said a substantial raise at work has allowed him to pare down the money he owes on learner loans, financing card loans and medical debt from about $22,500 to $20,700 over the history year. He’s increased his monthly financing card payments, he’s built up enough funds to handle shock outgoings like car maintenance and vet bills for his cat, and he has enough returns now to feel at-ease when going out to eat or purchasing a $5 Tuesday movie ticket.

“I’m able to make all my payments and still have money left over to do things I enjoy,” said Charon, an accountant based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The raise “has definitely made all the difference. Otherwise, I’d probably be a lot closer to where I was last year.”

Adjusting his debt way has also helped. Charon shifted some of the money going toward monthly learner loan payments to paying off the higher-gain financing cards. So far, he’s paid off one of the six cards.

But there are still sacrifices Charon makes to pay down his debt. He continues to avoid unnecessary outgoings, like monthly streaming services, and he’s missing out on seeing household on the East Coast this holiday period to save money.

Heading into 2025, Charon said he’s worried changes under President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration could affect his advancement. Some economists have warned that Trump’s plans for tariffs would reignite worth rise.

“A lot of other Americans that are at the returns level I’m at — with those learner loans and in the same debt circumstance I’m in — it would be a battle to navigate the rising costs of those necessities like groceries and household goods,” he said. “Hopefully the tariffs won’t have as much of an result to the economy as a few sources are saying, but if it does, I ponder we’ll figure it out. We always do.”

– Bailey Schulz

Kim Mahoney

• Age: 41
• Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
• debt in 2023: About $6,000
• debt in 2024: About $12,000

This was supposed to be the year single mom Kim Mahoney would finally be debt free. But again, for the third year in a row, unexpected outgoings popped up and derailed that schedule.

Here’s a glimpse of how her budgetary life unfolded in 2024:

• $5,000 for a recent air conditioner when her ancient one broke down during a heat spell in Chicago last summer. “Luckily, that’s 0% gain for two years,” she said.
• $3,000 on a financing card for essential teeth extraction for her elderly dog.
• $2,000 for a special assessment by her condo association for roof repairs. She made her final monthly remittance this month.
• $2,000 on a financing card for car repairs, including recent brakes.

“I was on track, and now I’m way off track,” Mahoney said. “I don’t recognize how I’m going to get out, honestly. I feel like I can’t get my head above water.”

In history years, Mahoney often relied on her April levy refund to assist erase most of her debt. This year, she thinks it’ll assist with only about a quarter to a third of it. As an alternate schedule, she’s been transferring as much as she can to 0% gain financing cards.

With a zero-APR financing card, you pay no gain for a promotional period, typically 15 to 21 months.  

“I just did a settlement transfer again that had a tiny fee, but at least some of that won’t have gain for the next 18 months,” Mahoney said. “I might look into another settlement transfer for 0%, but I recognize there’s usually a 3-5% fee. I figure that fee is less than the monthly gain.”

She said she considered getting a home stake line of financing, because gain rates are lower for those than for financing cards, but she said she doesn’t have enough stake in her home yet to qualify.

“I could not contribute to my 401(k) for a year to assist pay it [debt] off, but that feels like giving away free money when I get a match from work,” she said. “But if I’m paying gain, maybe it is worth it to do that,” or just contribute the minimum to get the match.

budgetary advisers would declare Mahoney’s taking all the correct steps to manage her debt, but she regrets having debt in the first place.

“I feel embarrassed about it,” she said, “but I don’t recognize what else to do. I only make so much money.”

A higher-paying job doesn’t seem realistic, either.  As a dietitian, “I will never make more anywhere else,” she said. “I already make way more than most dietitians. I would require to transformation careers to make more money.”

At age 41, starting over feels like a tall order. Besides, she said, she likes what she does.

But she admits, “it’s challenging being a single-returns household. I was doing so much better 5 years ago,” she said, but everything has gotten so expensive. Tickets for a movie over Christmas shatter with her 8-year-ancient son expense her $50, she said.

She tries not to let costs deter her from celebrating Christmas and living life with her son, but she’s capping her outgoings at $200.

“At least I don’t have learner loans and paying that ridiculous gain,” she said. And, “I have my health. Can’t put a worth tag on that.”

– Medora Lee

Angela Davis

• Age: 32
• Hometown: Detroit
• debt in 2023: About $8,000
• debt in 2024: Zero

At the close of 2023, as she struggled to pay off $19,000 in financing card debt, Angela Davis faced an austere recent Year. 

This December, as she repays the last of that debt, Davis has something to celebrate.

Davis, 32, enrolled at the University of Michigan in 2018, pursuing a master’s degree in community health. She financed her education with learner loans and her job, working 12-hour shifts as a sanitation supervisor at a produce plant near her Detroit home. She thought she could both work and study packed period. 

The schedule lasted about two months. Exhausted, Davis quit her job. learner loans could not back her outgoings, so she began taking on financing card debt. 

Though Davis worked challenging at making payments, her card balances crept up, with gain rates ranging as high as 24%. She contacted the card companies to discuss lower rates. She closed some of the accounts. 

In 2022, she took her remaining debt to Money Management International, the nonprofit financing counselor. 

The schedule called for Davis to pay off the last of the card debt in early 2026. But she made extra payments on her own. This month, she repaid the last $900 in debt.  

“For 2025, I wanted to be free and obvious,” she said. “My focus has shifted so much to living debt-free, even though people ponder it’s unfeasible.” 

Davis was resourceful in attacking her debt. She used a popular debt-reduction way called the “snowball”: You make aggressive payments on the debt with the smallest settlement, aiming to retire it quickly, scoring a budgetary and psychological triumph. 

Davis dines at home more often now. When she and her husband leave out to eat, she drinks water. She did not binge on Christmas gifts in 2023. This year, she said, “I’m still not planning to leave crazy.” Digging out of financing card debt has taught her something. 

“I do ponder it’s significantly changed my mindset,” she said.  

– Daniel de Visé

Cynthia Davis

• Age: 53
• Hometown: Perris, California; soon to be Dallas, Texas.
• debt in 2023: About $1,000 in financing card debt, plus $300,000 in learner loans
• debt in 2024: $300 in financing card debt — and the learner loans

Last year, Cynthia Davis’s biggest debt was a hefty $300,000 in college and graduate-school loans. She had just begun making the $450 monthly payments. She hoped that, as a social worker, she might qualify for one of the loan forgiveness programs from President Joe Biden.

Davis, who has two social work jobs and a side hustle bakery business, took advantage of remittance schedule options in 2023 when holiday shopping for her then-high-school-age son. The single mother was trying to settlement bills and her son’s expensive computer equipment needs.

Her financing card debt last year was fairly tiny: about $1,000 on two cards. But Davis was still carrying a settlement and paying high gain rates, since she was prioritizing statement-paying and her apportionment.

Last year, Davis moved into a house that her parents bought, helping pay the bills. She also had a recent car and insurance payments, since her son had recently begun driving and they outgrew their smaller vehicle.

A lot has happened for Davis, now 53, in the last year, especially in the last eight or nine months.

In a whirlwind romance, Davis met her now fiancé, Michael Reid Johnson. The couple schedule on getting married in a private ritual next month and hosting a apportionment-conscious wedding reception for friends in the spring. They’re having tacos; she’s baking the desserts.

Davis also will be moving to Dallas to be with Johnson as soon as she locks down a recent job. She’s in the final stages of job hunting with a business that wants to make her an propose, though they may be in a temporary hiring freeze.

Davis will be taking a large pay cut if she takes this job. She currently estimates that she makes $120,000 between her packed and part-period social work jobs in California and will make about $52,000 in Dallas for one social work job, where she would be leading a throng.

But expense of living is also much lower in Dallas, Davis said. Her fiancé owns his own house and has been paying for her trips to visit him and other trips the couple have been taking. He’s also suggested she receive just one job that can receive worry of her outgoings, like her car payments.

Her financing card debt is down to about $300 and her financing score has gone up, she said.

Davis’ son is a freshman in college in California, studying engineering. He is living with Davis’ parents, but he has a job to pay for his outgoings and a car he bought. For Christmas and throughout the year, Davis said, she helped him pay for some “grown-up” life outgoings like insurance and car repairs.

Davis also took out a learner loan in her name for her son, costing about $7,000 a year.

She knows it wasn’t excellent to add more debt to her learner loans, but “he has to have an education.” Once her son is more financially stable, she might inquire him to assist her pay back his loan.

Davis estimates her year’s worth of learner loan payments haven’t put much of a dent in her total debt.

She still hopes she will advantage from Biden’s last learner loan forgiveness program action of his administration, which was recently announced. She qualifies and hopes she will be included, since she “highly doubts” there will be similar learner debt loan relief with the Trump administration.

If she doesn’t get loan forgiveness, Davis said she will try to renegotiate her loans, since she’ll have a lower salary and her husband-to-be has his own learner loans.

“The impact would be great for me if my loans were forgiven,” she said. “I have applied before and am still waiting.”

Davis said she received a note before saying the program was on pause, “but a few of my friends did get theirs forgiven, but I didn’t, and that’s just frustrating.”

– Betty Lin-Fisher

Alyssa Barnhart

• Age: 31
• Hometown: Bozeman, Montana
• debt in 2023: About $9,000
• debt in 2024: About $7,000

Alyssa Barnhart, 31, said her budgetary stress has eased since consolidating her debt in late 2023.

After paying off her car earlier this year, she pays about $200 toward financing card debt and another $60 toward learner loans each month. Payments now feel “so straightforward”: At one point, she was paying $500 a month toward financing card debt.  

“I definitely feel a lot better about my finances this year, compared to last year,” she said.

There are still budgetary hurdles. Rent in Bozeman, Montana, keeps going up, and Barnhart has been dropping money to keep her 13-year-ancient red nose Pitbull, Kiefer, comfortable in his ancient age with joint pills.

But she said this is one of her best winters in recent recollection, with enough money to spend “as much as I desire” on gifts for friends and household.

“I finished shopping maybe a week or two ago because I was able to afford it and just get it out of the way,” she said. “I haven’t felt the battle of, its Christmas, oh my goodness, how am I going to arrive up with this money?” 

Barnhart works a seasonal job at a landscaping business, plus a job at a elder home during the winter. For her improved finances, she credits a pay raise, plus a better understanding of how to handle her money after receiving advice from friends and household.

“I’ve learned a lot, personally, about learning how to be in a better mindset about it. You have to be an grown-up, you have to pay bills, you can’t willy-nilly leave on trips. You have to declare no,” she said. “You have to have your priorities more straight to accomplish the budgetary goals you have.”

– Bailey Schulz