It’s the big punchline in Joel Trigg’s household.

The family used to live on Cash, but now lives on Credit.

That’s Cash Road, a busy South Hall artery connecting Hog Mountain and Union Church roads, and Credit Drive, a short road that juts off Cash and connects to Hog Mountain Road.

"People get a kick out of it when I tell them" where he lives, Trigg said. "They say, ‘You’re kidding.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not kidding.’"

Trigg moved to what was then Cash Road in 1975.

"At one time ... Credit Drive used to be (part of) the main road and the part that is Cash Road now used to be the little (unnamed) spur (off Cash)," he said.

The name changes took place in the mid-1990s.

"We didn’t even realize they had changed the address until my son’s girlfriend came over to the house one day and asked, ‘When did they change the name of the street?’" Trigg said.

He went to the intersection and noticed the new street signs.

"The people at the post office didn’t even know it had been changed," Trigg said. "I finally talked to the county commissioners and they said that’s what they had changed the name to."

Nikki Young, spokeswoman for Hall County, said at that some point, someone decided the unnamed stretch of road, thickly wooded on both sides, needed a name.

"The planning staff came up with the name Credit Drive, a tongue-in-cheek antithesis to Cash Road," she said.

Credit Drive’s only residents are Trigg’s family, including his mother-in-law.

Trigg has been ribbed for years about the road names, which are more eye-catching today because of the economic downturn.

"I say I couldn’t afford cash anymore, so I went to credit," he said, chuckling.

The fact that both roads lead to Hog Mountain Road has made giving directions even more interesting.

When Flowery Branch High School was built off Hog Mountain, that stirred talk about what to call the mascot.

"They should have called them the Razorbacks," he said. "That would have worked real well."

Another big change for Trigg over the years has been traffic.

At one time, Cash Road "was all dirt road and ... there were only like about three houses for the first mile," he said.

Today, subdivisions, some with high-priced homes, line the curvy road. "It’s just unreal now," he said.

Motorists often struggle leaving Cash or Credit to turn onto Hog Mountain.

That has been particularly true with Flowery Branch High being built and Hog Mountain leading to Atlanta Highway, where the Atlanta Falcons complex and the former Davis Middle School are located.

The Hall County school system has built a new Flowery Branch High, which is off Spout Springs Road, and moved students from South Hall Middle to Davis and from Davis to the old Flowery Branch High.

"I don’t how much it’s going to change now," Trigg said. "That may cut down on a lot of the traffic because of (students) driving back and forth to school."

Hall County’s traffic engineering division "has looked at improving the intersection by bringing Cash Road up the hill and tying it into the school driveway," Young said.

"The engineers have studied it, but no plans have been drawn up," she said.