Forest Hill's Jeff Judge in Barron's: The retiree credit card debt hiding in plain sight

By Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, Managing Partner, Chesapeake Financial Planners, Forest Hill, MD.

A recent survey found that close to a third of older Americans now carry more credit card debt than they have saved for retirement. When Barron's asked me about it, my answer was simple. I see some version of this in my office more often than people would guess.

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Here is what is actually happening. Retirement replaces a paycheck with a fixed income, and a fixed income does not flex the way a salary does. A car repair, a dental bill, a higher grocery total, and the gap gets bridged with a card. It feels temporary. Most of the time it is not, and the balance grows faster than people expect once the interest compounds.

The costlier mistake shows up next. I have seen retirees try to invest their way out of a debt hole, chasing returns to outrun a 20 percent interest rate. That math never works. No portfolio reliably beats revolving credit card debt, and betting a retirement on the attempt only makes the hole deeper.

For families in Fallston, retirees commuting into Towson for medical appointments, and folks near Aberdeen watching a parent manage this quietly, the fix is not a bigger return target. It is a specific paydown plan built around the actual numbers: what gets tackled first, what gets restructured, and what the monthly figure needs to be to close the gap for good.

This piece builds on "Many Retirees Have More Credit Card Debt Than Savings. Financial Advisors' Best Tips.," in Barron's (August 2026).

Jeff Judge, CFP®, AEP®, ChFC®, CLU®, is Managing Partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners in Forest Hill, MD. Book an intro call.