When People Have To Use Affirm To Pay Rent, Things Are Bad
In recent years, it’s become common for people to use buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans to purchase electronics, furniture, or other inessential but occasionally pricey items. Now, data reveals that a growing number of people are using BNPL loans to pay for essentials like groceries and rent.
CBS News reports that nearly 30% of BNPL users said they used the service to pay for groceries, a 14% increase from the year before. Another 23% of respondents said that they’ve used the loans to pay for medical, dental, or veterinary services. BNPL companies are not ignorant of this shift, as services like Affirm have launched pilot programs this year allowing people to take a BNPL loan to pay their rent. The loans are interest-free and not subject to late fees, but they require Affirm users to pay a monthly membership fee of $35-$50.
“Theoretically, if you can make the payment by the due date and there are no additional financing costs, sure, it could help,” Jennifer Zhang, a policy, research and data analyst at Protect Borrowers, told CBS News. “But they can be packed to the brim with late fees and junk fees that can snowball and become a source of financial distress for many people.”
BNPL loans were introduced in the 2010s as a way for people to split the cost of a large purchase into smaller, monthly payments. BNPL usage increased through the 2020s, driven by companies like Affirm, Klarna, and Zip. Part of their popularity comes from retailers offering the loans at checkout, with a fairly efficient approval process. Americans borrowed $160 billion in BNPL loans in 2025, approximately double the amount from two years earlier, according to research by Federal Reserve economists. The report also found that more than $96 billion in loans was issued without interest.
While BNPL loan usage has increased, so have late payments. A report from LendingTree found that nearly half of BNPL users reported paying late in the last year, an increase from 41% the year before.
Ariel Nelson, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, a nonprofit advocacy group that supports economic justice for low-income people, told CBS News that the increase in people using BNPL loans for essential goods highlights just how deeply the cost-of-living crisis is impacting working-class Americans.
“The most helpful thing about them is what they reveal about the state of affordability — or unaffordability — in our country, which is that people are struggling to pay rent and utilities on time and in one amount,” Nelson told CBS News. “At best, [BNPL loans] can act as a temporary Band-Aid. Even then, they are not risk-free.”
Listen, I’ve got no shade on BNPL loans. I’ve definitely used Affirm to get my first computer post-college, and used it a few years ago to get my camera. While both of those purchases were business needs, I could’ve survived without them. It’s alarming that the U.S. economy has gotten so bad that people need to use BNPL loans to pay for their basic needs.
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