Debit card users are quietly funding everyone else's credit card rewards. Wheeler and Colin trace the three ways credit card companies actually make money, interchange fees, net interest income, and annual fees, and land on why swiping a debit card doesn't opt you out of the cost, it just means someone else collects the reward. A client story backs it up: a couple who paid off $40,000 to $50,000 in credit card debt across five cards by switching to debit, now sitting on a new house, no debt, and $300,000 saved.

From there, a chart on rate hike expectations versus the Truflation Index, a real-time inflation measure built on actual merchant transactions instead of the CPI's monthly surveys, plus a fast history of the CPI itself. Then the big number of the episode: a $1,000 government seed plus $100 a month to age 60 turns $73,000 in total contributions into $1.87 million, the anchor for a full breakdown of the newly formalized Trump accounts for kids under 18.

Sources:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index history and methodology
Truflation.com, index methodology (real-time alternative inflation index)
CME Group FedWatch Tool, market-implied Fed rate expectations
U.S. Department of the Treasury and IRS.gov, Trump Accounts program guidance
Congress.gov, Road to Housing Act legislative record
Visa and Mastercard interchange fee schedules; Square payment processing rate disclosures

Follow Us:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/compoundgrowthpod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CompoundGrowthPodcast
TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@compoundgrowthpod
Wheeler’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wheeler-crowley-0a63933b/
Colin’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-walker-mba-6099a038/

Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell