WASHINGTON — With student loan and credit card debt both at record highs, many consumers buried in debt are looking for ways to ease the burden.
But to what extremes would they go?
Surveys often ask ridiculous questions and get surprising responses.
A new MyBankTracker survey said 19 percent of those asked would be willing to swim in a pool of sharks for 30 minutes in order to erase all debt. Millennials were even more likely to do so, at 25 percent.
According to MyBankTracker, another 15 percent said they would be willing to walk naked through Times Square once a day for an entire year.
And 45 percent would be willing to go a year without physical affection — including sex — from their significant other. Fifty-eight percent who chose debt freedom over intimacy were female.
While there is no reason to think any of the more than 1,000 of its readers MyBankTracker polled would actually follow through, consumer debt is no laughing matter.
According to Experian, Americans have an average $24,706 in non-mortgage debt. They are using 30 percent of their available credit at any given time, and owe an average of $5,347 in credit card debt.
The D.C. area ranks No. 1 among metro areas for student loan debt.
LendingTree found the median balance for student loan borrowers in the D.C. area is almost $23,000. But almost 10 percent of student loan holders in the region owe more than $100,000.
