What happens if you pay less than the minimum on your credit card?

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September 17, 2026 / 2:56 PM EDT / CBS News

If you're carrying a high balance on your credit cards but your finances are stretched thin, making the minimum payment each month can provide some much-needed breathing room in your budget. Rather than having to pay off the entire card balance at once, you only have to cover a fraction of what you owe to keep the account current on a monthly basis. But when other expenses are competing for the same limited funds, even that smaller monthly obligation can become difficult to fit into the budget.

And that's an issue more cardholders may be confronting right now, as credit card balances are climbing, card rates are ticking upward and high interest charges are making carrying this type of debt expensive. When there's only so much money available to cover housing, groceries, utilities and other necessities, coming up short on a credit card payment can become a real possibility — even if you're still able to send the issuer some of what you owe.

In that situation, paying $150 toward…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/moneywatch/