Did You Know?

• Making the minimum payment on a $4800 balance (an average balance of U.S. cardholders) at the average 17% interest rate, it would take you 39 years and seven month to pay off. (Premier Money Management)
  
  
• On average, you will spend 112% more on a credit card purchase than when using cash. (Premier Money Management)

• Public costs from teenage childbearing totaled $120 billion from 1985 to 1990; 48 million could have been saved if each birth had been postponed until the mother was at least 20 years old. (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)
  
  
• About 1 million teenagers become pregnant each year; 95% of those pregnancies are unintended, and almost one third end in abortions. (National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion)
  
  
• Approximately 550,000 to 750,000 infants born each year in the United States have some symptoms of drug and/or alcohol exposure. (ARCH National Resource Center for Respite and Crisis Care Services, 1997)
  
  
• Birth Defects are the leading cause of infant mortality in the United States, accounting for more than 20% of all infant deaths. Of about 120,000 U.S. babies born each year with a birth defect, 8,000 die during their first year of life. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
  
  
• The National Institute of Health estimated the annual cost of FAS in 1992 to be $1.9 billion. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

• It is now estimated that 6,000 adolescents try their first cigarette every day in the United States alone. More detrimental is the fact that 3,000 of these individuals become regular smokers each day. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
  
  
• Smoking causes more deaths every year than fires, auto crashes, alcohol, cocaine, heroine, AIDS, murders, and suicides combined. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
  
  
• If current smoking patterns continue, an estimated 25 million Americans will die prematurely from a smoking-related illness, including an estimated 5 million people who are now children and adolescents under the age of 18 years. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
  
  
• People who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at 21. (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 1998)

• It is estimated that 76 million people get sick, more than 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 Americans die each year of foodborne illness. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)