> This can be a misleading statistic. A lot of people use credit cards as a substitute for cash, and pay off the balance every month. This is accounted as "debt

> This can be a misleading statistic. A lot of people use credit cards as a substitute for cash, and pay off the balance every month. This is accounted as "debt" but in a practical sense it is not. Indeed, this is annoying nonsensical. They should not count credit card balance as debt until it has rolled over at least one payment cycle. Every summer my credit score drops ~40-50 points when I put the upcoming school year payment on the credit card (they give a nice-enough discount for prepaying) and then a month later bounces right back up after I pay it.