Holiday Shoppers Feel Credit Card Aftershock

A late surge of holiday shoppers hit upscale shops and discount stores in full force, pleasing retailers, but putting a strain on the already bloated credit cards of millions of Americans, according to CareOneCredit.com.

Electronic sales rose 0.9 percent in December, the best numbers in five months. This number exceeded the predicted 0.7 percent made by analysts, according to the Commerce Department (DoC), and Web holiday sales were up 24 percent this year. A soft housing market had consumers turning away from home equity withdrawals and back to the familiar plastic, statistics show.

But it remains to be seen if all the purchases made during the past holiday season could really be afforded, as a dramatic increase in consumer debt was seen during this time as credit card debt jumped to $8.7 billion in revolving debt during November, after falling $1.3 billion the previous month. Overall, the November credit rose to $12.4 billion.

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