Gen Z Adults Are Paying Rent With Credit Cards

Both Confortini and Lamarr post personal finance articles on TikTok (surveys show most Gen Z consumers turn to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram for financial advice), and both talked about paying rent with their credit card on the platform. None of them work with Bilt, although they can earn points for successful referrals. Confortini estimates she has made about 35 recommendations over the past year.

Daniel Heppner, a 25-year-old software developer from Seattle, also charges a $1,700 monthly rent on his Bilt card and met the minimum transaction requirements by purchasing several $1 Amazon gift cards (those purchases started getting rejected, so he now uses the card at restaurants and cafes). “Honestly, overall I think credit card rewards are just a big scam,” he said. “We all pay for this in credit card fees. But I'm going to take the opportunity to get as much as I can while this is the system we live in.” Heppner said he has about 10 credit cards and pays them off in full. “I don't even know how much it's worth trying to maximize all of this. What do you get, an extra $10, $20, $30 a month?” The fact that the awards funded partly due to interest from people who can't pay their bills is “really unfair,” he said, but the way commerce works today, credit cards “are not something I can boycott.”

For consumers who aren't trying to earn rewards or can't pay off their debts in full, charging those expenses to a credit card could indicate a financial shortfall, “and that's certainly happening with Gen Z as well,” said Matt Schultz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. “It's a scary thing, especially considering how quickly interest rates have risen over the last year or so.” average credit card interest rate is now 23.55%, the highest since Schultz's company began tracking monthly rates in 2019. The first year of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a sharp increase in the number of renters who… charging rent to your credit cards According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, they were waiting for emergency funds to arrive. In a separate LendingTree surveyAbout 45% of Gen Z adults live paycheck to paycheck, and 62% of people who didn't have money to pay bills used their credit cards to cover them.