Ryan Gardner

Math 1050

Professor: Cesar Melo

7/20/17

Credit Card Debt Assignment Reflection

Completing the credit card debt assignment gave me new insight into exactly how expensive it is

to carry a balance on a credit card. Generally, it has always been recommended to me that I should pay

off my credit card balance monthly due to the high interest rates associated with credit cards. Ideally

everyone would like to be able to pay down all of their credit card debts, but it is not always possible.

This assignment highlighted how slowly the credit card balance is reduced when only making minimum

payments. My take away from this is that even if the credit card balance cant be paid off each month, it

is still very beneficial to pay it down as much as possible in order to avoid excessive interest payments.

In order to solve for the number of months required to pay off the credit card using only

minimum payments, a variation of the annuity formula was used in the assignment. The amount of

interest you will pay over the life of a mortgage or a car loan can be calculated using another variation of

this formula. Also, if you are planning for retirement, you first determine the approximate rate of return

you expect to receive on your investments, then the annuity formula can be used to determine how

much money you need to put into savings each month in order to meet your goal at retirement.

This activity used mathematical concepts ranging from finding terms in geometric sequences, to

solving for exponents using logarithms. This assignment allowed me to see the value in understanding

logs so that variables of exponents can be solved for. I also was able to sharpen my basic algebra skills by

taking the annuity formula and manipulating it to allow me to solve for different variables such as the

payment required to pay the credit card off in 12 months, or how many months it will take to pay the

card off by making double the minimum payment.