There are only ten more days until Christmas.  Fortunately, the charts show that the cost of purchasing those meaningful expressions of love has risen less that the average paycheck, just in case you don’t have an army of elves helping you out this year.

This week the Fed raised their Funds Rate by 0.25%, making that index now 1.5%.  Three percent is tacked onto that rate to give a Prime Rate of 4.5%. and banks tack loads of profit on top of Prime to make their credit card offering rates significantly higher still.  If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that the holidays were sponsored by Master Card and Visa.  Borrowing on a credit card is not going to get any cheaper either if the Fed adds another 0.75% in 2018 as they hope.  So be wise with your Christmas giving, and if you need some help making that debt more manageable, mortgage rates are now less than even Prime :).

Have a wonderful, festive, loving week!