After a rather underappreciated and overlooked high school career, Charles Barkley committed to the Auburn Tigers in 1981. The program needed its next big star to turn things around, and Barkley — with his unique physique and skill set — delivered, helping put Auburn University on the map.
That, of course, not only changed the university’s fortunes but also Barkley’s financial situation. Although this was decades before the era of Name, Image and Likeness deals, the power forward received a modest financial benefit during his time at Auburn thanks to a monthly allowance from his agents.
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However, this allowance did not teach Barkley a valuable lesson about money. That came the hard way after he and his teammates discovered credit cards and all the wonders they had to offer — or so they thought.
“I teach all my friends about credit cards. You know, in college, they send you MasterCard and Visa. The discovery cards,” he recalled on All The Smoke podcast. “I remember me and all my teammates, we’d go shopping every weekend.”
Barkley thought they beat the system
According to the NBA legend, they quickly embraced the newfound spending power, going on shopping sprees every weekend — convinced they had found a way to buy things without paying up front.
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As long as they made the minimum monthly payment, they believed they could keep spending money without facing any consequences. At the time, Barkley and his teammates thought they had figured out a way to beat the system.
“We’d be high-fiving each other, like, man, we’re getting over on these white folks,” he recalled.
That was until Barkley entered the league in 1984 as the fourth overall pick of the Philadelphia 76ers, and his agent immediately gave him a reality check about his finances. It was just proper for him to do so, considering the amount of money that was coming for the then-future star’s way.
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First, the agent wanted to settle his bills. However, he was stunned to learn about his spending habits, especially how he used his credit card.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I got some bills.’ He says, ‘Hey, man, what all these bills you got?’ I said, ‘Man, we were getting over on those white folks. We were buying all this s–t,'” he recalled. “He says, ‘Are you serious right now?'”
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Barkley’s agent gave them a sobering reality check
It turned out that Barkley and his friends had badly understood how credit cards worked. When his agent later looked through his bills, he explained that making only the minimum monthly payment did not mean Barkley was paying off what he had borrowed.
Instead, much of what he was paying went toward interest, while the principal balance remained largely unpaid.
“He says, ‘Son, you know how credit cards work?’ I says, ‘Yeah, you get them and you buy s—t,'” Barkley answered.
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“He says, ‘You see this thing you bought for $2,000? At the rate you’re going, you’re going to be paying like $22,000 for it by the time you’re done…that’s how they get poor people. They give you a credit card, you pay the minimum, and you don’t ever, ever end up paying it off. But by the time you pay it off, you paid like three times what it originally cost,” he added.
Barkley immediately called his college teammates to tell them what he had learned before they made any more reckless purchases.
The Phoenix Suns star played for 16 years in the league, building a Hall of Fame career and earning over $40 million, plus millions more from his post-retirement broadcasting career. While he eventually learned how to use credit cards responsibly, his relationship with money never changed because of gambling.
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But unlike his credit-card mistakes, he has never expressed regret for the money he lost to this vice.
Related: Rick Mahorn roasted Charles Barkley over MJ’s sneaker habbit: “You’re no Michael Jordan”
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Sep 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.