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Using transaction data from a US consumer payments diary, we revisit the credit card debt puzzle-a scenario in which consumers revolve credit card debt while also keeping liquid assets as bank account deposits. This scenario is very common: 42 percent of consumers in our sample were borrower-savers in 2019 (those who carry $100 or more in credit card debt and $100 or more in liquid assets). We explain the puzzle by showing that consumers need their liquid assets to pay monthly bills and other necessary expenses, including mortgage or rent. More than 80 percent of bills by value were paid out of bank accounts and could not be charged to credit cards, so bank account balances were needed to cover those basic expenses. On average, borrower-savers' credit card debt exceeded their liquid assets. The average borrower-saver carried almost $6,400 in unpaid credit card debt and had $5,400 in liquid assets, including checking and savings accounts, cash, and general-purpose prepaid cards. Only 40 percent of borrower-savers had liquid assets greater than their unpaid credit card balance. In addition, borrower-savers' monthly expenses (bills and purchases) averaged 77 percent of their liquid assets, not leaving enough to repay their credit card debt. On average, the value of their liquid assets could cover only about 60 percent of their unpaid debt plus monthly bills. In almost every category of assets or debts, both housing- and nonhousing-related, borrower-savers were significantly worse off financially than savers. Thus, the differences between borrower-savers and savers are much broader than just their credit card debt and bank account balances; the differences extend to mortgage debt and home equity. Even when we control for income and demographics in a regression, we find that carrying a mortgage or other debt (such as auto or educational loans) is associated with a higher probability of revolving on a credit card, suggesting that various types of household debt are complements rather than substitutes. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, consumers' unpaid credit card debt decreased, and their liquid assets increased, so the fraction of borrower-savers dropped to 35 percent of the sample.

Using a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, we analyze which payment methods consumers use to pay other consumers (p2p) and how these choices depend on transaction and demographic characteristics. We additionally construct a random matching model of consumers with diverse preferences over the use of different payment methods for p2p payments. The random matching model is calibrated to the share of p2p payments made with cash, paper check, and electronic technologies observed from 2015 to 2019. We find about two thirds of consumers have a first p2p payment preference of cash. The remaining one third rank checks first. Approximately 93 percent of consumers rank electronic technologies second. Our empirical analysis finds that the most significant factors in determining the payment method used are the transaction value and the age and education of the payer.

Why do US consumers pay their bills the way they do? Using data from a recent diary of consumer payment behavior, we find that the type of bill consumers are paying and how they are paying (online or automatically) are important factors in determining the payment method, in addition to the dollar value of the bill and the demographic and income profile of the individual who is paying. In contrast, dollar value and demographic attributes are found to be the most important factors determining the payment instrument chosen for purchases. Consumer choices for bill payments are somewhat constrained by requirements imposed by merchants, while the choice of payment instrument for purchases is not constrained by such requirements.The convenience and speed provided by automatic and online payments are not benefitting all US consumers equally. Unbanked consumers lack access to most payment methods and, hence, use cash or prepaid cards to pay their bills. Low-income consumers pay their bills differently from the rest of the sample: They are more likely to pay in person, use significantly more cash, and are less likely to set up automated or online bill payments, regardless of whether they have a bank account. Although consumers specify in the diary which methods they prefer to use to pay their bills, in practice they are not likely to act consistently with their stated preferences. We find that consumers who pay their bills online are less likely to deviate from their preferred payment method, while those who pay their bills automatically are more likely to deviate, after we control for income, demographic attributes, the dollar amount of the bill, and the merchant type. We find no evidence of the salience effect of automatic bill payments that Sexton (2015) finds for energy consumption. Rather, we find that consumers who pay their bills automatically have higher incomes and spend more on bills than lower-income consumers do, but that automatic bill payments are lower in value on average, which is the opposite of the finding by Sexton (2015).