{"id":4890,"date":"2026-07-14T13:31:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T13:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/some-buy-now-pay-later-users-finance-groceries-rent-and-bills\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T13:31:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T13:31:37","slug":"some-buy-now-pay-later-users-finance-groceries-rent-and-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/some-buy-now-pay-later-users-finance-groceries-rent-and-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Some buy now, pay later users finance groceries, rent and bills"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Buy now, pay later services have been on the rise as more consumers look to short-term installment financing options to help them manage the rising costs of daily necessities, not just pay for discretionary purchases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

BNPL providers originated nearly $157 billion in consumer credit products in 2025, up from nearly $116 billion in 2024, according to Federal Reserve estimates. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a new LendingTree survey shows that 44% of Americans expect to apply for a BNPL loan in the next six months, including 13% who expect to take out three or more in that timeframe. The site polled 2,000 consumers earlier in July.<\/p>\n

Yet falling behind on payments could result in a vicious cycle of debt, experts say.<\/p>\n

“Often they just, they’ve exhausted their credit cards, and buy now, pay later is their only option,” said Jim Triggs, CEO of Money Management International, a non-profit credit counseling firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Credit card debt in the U.S. hit $1.25 trillion in the first quarter, up 5.9% from a year earlier, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Consumers using buy now, pay later for necessities<\/h2>\n
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Ashley Reed and her mom Regina Perez.<\/p>\n

Courtesy: Ashley Reed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ashley Reed tells CNBC she became a frequent BNPL user two years ago, after tapping out her credit cards to help pay caregiving expenses after her mother suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm while they were vacationing together.<\/p>\n

“I wound up maxing out my credit cards to get hotel rooms and things like that to stay with her and to get her transferred back to Baltimore. It was about $2,500 for an ambulance ride, and so, completely maxed out my cards,” said Reed, now 40, who has a full-time job as a paraeducator and also works part-time as a radiology assistant.<\/p>\n

Having reached her credit limit on her cards, Reed said, she turned to BNPL services to help make ends meet, including for groceries.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More from Your Money:<\/h2>\n
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Here’s a look at more stories on how to manage, grow and protect your money for the years ahead.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She’s one of a growing number of consumers doing so amid inflation and other price pressures, such as higher gas prices stemming from the U.S. war with Iran.<\/p>\n

Nearly a third, 29%, of buy now, pay later users said they’ve used these short-term loans to buy groceries \u2014 up from 14% in 2024, according to a separate March survey from LendingTree of more than 2,000 adults. About 18% said they used a BNPL loan for car repairs or maintenance, and 13% used it to pay their rent.<\/p>\n

More recently, a survey by the\u00a0consumer advocacy group Protect Borrowers\u00a0found\u00a0that\u00a042%\u00a0of respondents\u00a0who have used\u00a0BNPL loans\u00a0did so to pay for medical or dental care, and 39% to pay utility bills. Data for Progress, a progressive think tank, polled 1,164 U.S. voters online on behalf of Protect Borrowers in early July. The survey draws on a subset of 438 individuals who have used BNPL loans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Missing BNPL payments can be costly<\/h2>\n
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Keeping up with BNPL payments can be challenging: Almost half of users, 47%, said they’ve paid late on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in 2024, according to Lending Tree’s March poll.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’ve also seen that a lot of consumers are missing payments,” Triggs said. “It’s definitely a big issue, a big problem.”<\/p>\n

The majority of BNPL loans have a so-called “pay in 4” plan with no interest. Payments are often made in four installments \u2014 a 25% down payment at the time of purchase, followed by three more equal payments over the next six weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, some BNPL services, like the ones Reed uses, offer a biweekly payment plan in which you pay in five installments over six to eight weeks, often with interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2026, interest-bearing installment loans accounted for over 37% of annual BNPL loan issuance, which is nearly double the share in 2021, according to a new report from Protect Borrowers.\u00a0Late payment fees on some BNPL services can run $7 to $8 per payment, and interest plus financing fees can reach up to 36%, the report found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“That can make a small loan turn into something that looks more like a payday loan,” said Protect Borrowers executive director Mike Pierce. “It’s the equivalent of an interest rate of 100% APR or more because you have these late fees that stack on top of each other.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Industry groups say BNPL is helping consumers confront an affordability crisis and rising inflation. <\/p>\n

“Consumers are increasingly choosing the flexibility that pay-over-time options with clear, transparent terms provide,” American Fintech Council CEO Phil Goldfeder wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n

Miranda Margowsky, a spokesperson for the Financial Technology Association, wrote in an email that “splitting the cost of a purchase into four installments with zero to low interest is smart money management, not financial risk.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reed said she has not missed a BNPL payment because she knows the risks. But she still feels stuck.<\/p>\n

“It’s almost like I’m in a never-ending cycle of doom,” she said. “I can’t get caught up, and then when I do pay it, something else comes up.”<\/p>\n

SIGN UP:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Money 101\u00a0<\/em>is an 8-week learning course on financial freedom, delivered weekly to your inbox. Sign up\u00a0<\/em>here.\u00a0<\/em>It is also available in\u00a0<\/em>Spanish.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy now, pay later services have been on the rise as more consumers look to short-term installment financing options to help them manage the rising costs of daily necessities, not just pay for discretionary purchases.\u00a0 BNPL providers originated nearly $157 billion in consumer credit products in 2025, up from nearly $116 billion in 2024, according […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[370,228,1469,3615,540,975,1091],"class_list":["post-4890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-bills","tag-buy","tag-finance","tag-groceries","tag-pay","tag-rent","tag-users"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finznest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}