It\u2019s an easy payment option that experts warn is becoming a debt trap for millions.<\/p>\n
More Americans are turning to buy now, pay later (BNPL) apps to cover necessities like groceries, and many are falling behind on their payments.<\/p>\n
A recent LendingTree report shows nearly 1 in 4 BNPL users have taken out loans just to buy groceries \u2014 almost double the share from a year ago, and nearly half of all users missed at least one payment in the past year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you miss a payment, you owe a bunch of interest,\u201d said Kyle Moore, a financial planner with Quarry Hill Advisors in St. Paul. \u201cYou\u2019re going to get hit with fees, and it\u2019s just going to be a bad compounding problem. Your credit score may take a hit as well. You\u2019re kind of sticking your future self with the problem, so you\u2019re getting all the benefits today without really having to suffer the consequences yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Financial experts recommend not using BNPL apps unless you can actually pay later.<\/p>\n
Local impact<\/p>\n
On Sundays at St. Michael\u2019s Lutheran Church in Roseville, Pastor Brad Froslee preaches about life challenges. On Tuesdays, a food truck stops at the church to help families in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a lot of families really struggling,\u201d said Froslee. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a significant amount of need.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is turning some parishioners toward BNPL services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me, but it does make me sad,\u201d said Froslee.<\/p>\n
Pastor Froslee said the church cannot fix every challenge, but the food truck is one way to help neighbors.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Debt<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Groceries<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Joe Mazan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s an easy payment option that experts warn is becoming a debt trap for millions. More Americans are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,3055,101,36469,25396],"class_list":["post-789316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-debt","tag-economy","tag-groceries","tag-joe-mazan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}