Halloween: What Are the Scariest Credit Card Rewards Deals?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Your Money Matters from The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to Your Money Matters. I'm J.R. Whalen with Anne-Marie Fertoli in New York. Halloween is a good time to watch your back for any ghosts and goblins that may be on your trail. But it's also a good time to take a look at some of the scariest credit cards and the biggest financial fears facing consumers. WalletHub's Jill Gonzalez joins us via Skype from Washington to discuss. So Jill, it is fun to buy treats with a credit card. There's no question about that. But the bad guys and fraudsters have a couple of tricks up their sleeves. And that has people running scared who are part of WalletHub's survey.
Absolutely.
How does WalletHub measure which financial fears worry consumers most this Halloween?
So there are both credit cards to look out for year round. We pick them out now because they are pretty scary. We also polled WalletHub users to see exactly what they're most scared of this Halloween, what big financial fears are, and even things that scare them about the holiday itself.
Hi, Jill. It's Anne-Marie. So this jumped out at me. I know we're talking about fears here, but people actually see data breaches as scarier than spiders?
Yes. I mean, we were given this poll a couple weeks after the huge Equifax breach, so I think this is definitely top of mind right now. But about 72% of Americans said that they were more scared of data breaches now So I think even a year or so back, those answers could have looked completely different. This now seems to be just more prevalent and therefore a little bit scarier that this actually could affect you.
And what are the world's spiders thinking? Have they fallen off their game? I mean, spiders are kind of scary.
Yeah, I'm sure that spiders are now feeling a little bit left in the dust. I think the stranger things, too. series might have helped them out.
Now, Jill, also 35% of people fear binging on Halloween candy more than racing up credit card debt. And I'm thinking to myself, now, hold on. If I binge on Halloween candy, I could go to the gym. I can go on a kale diet. I could work it down. But, you know, working down credit card debt is much more complex. That just struck me as a little bit odd coming into your survey, but still significant.
Yeah, absolutely. So that's a little more than one in three that would rather binge on Halloween candy than rack up credit card debt. So it's interesting to hear that we're so concerned about things like data breaches that obviously really affect us for long periods of time versus not racking up credit card debt, which could affect you for just the same amount of time. So we still seem to be concerned about the short term. rather than the long term. So that is very interesting.
So Jill, let's switch gears to the financial fears in this survey. Some of the most common here were unplanned money emergencies, not having enough for retirement savings. Tell us what else you found out from respondents about their most common financial fears.
So those two were a bit of a tie, and I think not surprising at all. But coming in third place, a good 20% of people fear this the most, is actually job loss. So that's, again, something that we found very interesting in a time when jobs are being touted as very strong. The economy is on the up. We're seeing unemployment virtually at historic lows. Yet people clearly are still affected by this kind of looking back on the recession and maybe looking forward. You know, this is still something that's plaguing people, depending on what part of the country that you're in.
You know, around this time of the year, we think about being surprised by things and haunted houses and stuff. But it seems like the element of surprise really has people concerned, especially when they don't see it coming and it impacts their pocketbook.
Exactly. So other than this, fraud, I think, which no one really seems coming, was one of them. And then poor credit was another financial fear here. So all of these things can affect your credit. Obviously, if you're going into debt because of an unplanned emergency or if you need to dip into retirement savings.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:45
2
How does WalletHub measure which financial fears worry consumers most this Halloween?
0:45–4:18
3
Why do more people fear data breaches than spiders after the Equifax breach?
4:18–7:55
4
How many Americans would rather binge on Halloween candy than rack up credit-card debt?
7:55–8:53
Speakers
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