Our total debt

Here is the debt that our class is either starting with or currently has to pay down: $76,667.12.
That averages out to a little more than $15,000 per family, and I know two families are quite a bit above average and driving that number up. The rest of you are significantly under that average. What does it mean? As a class, we're already a little weird. Remember, that's good news!
Here's some information I found regarding debt. When you read this, keep in mind this is ONLY credit card debt, not auto loans and student loans, which some families have on top of this debt.
The average household has more than $8,000 in credit card debt, up from about $3,000 in 1990. An $8,000 debt at a rate of 18% interest will take more than 25 years to repay and cost more than $24,000.
Some other interesting facts:
Americans spent 1 in 7 of their take-home dollars on debt payments last year, up from 1 in 9 in 1980.
The 1957 debt nation-wide (in today's dollars) was $29,722 per man, woman and child.
If debt per person were only adjusted for inflation over the 50 year period, 2007 should have remained the same size as 1957 at $29,722 per capita. BUT- the 2007 debt was $175,154 per man, woman and child - - 5.6 times higher per capita than in 1957.
Dan and I just discovered if we pay $300 more per month for three years, we can erase all of our debt (it's higher than anyone's in the class!). That's really a doable goal considering Dave Ramsey featured a couple on his radio show that paid off $80,000 in debt in four years on a combined income of $60,000. So, pray about it, work on your budget, use your envelope system, find only big bargains, don't use more credit and stick with it. It can work!