To ask how much debt you're in?

[Bringbacksummer]

We are a young family of 4 and have £6000 on a credit card. We are managing it but I feel it weighs me down at times.

Are many others in this situation? Also, any advice for clearing debt/ways to reduce spending?

[ShowOfHands]

Have you tried the MSE forum?

We're a family of 4 and we have a mortgage but no credit cards.

[trinketsofgold]

Family of 4. Both working. No mortgage. £6000 on a loan and around £4000 on cc

With the cc I chop around to get good deals. For example I just got a 0% balance transfer card which runs for 32 months.

If there is any left after I'll be shifting it around again

[MrsBellefleur]

Family of three soon to be 4. We have a mortgage and one car loan which has a year left, no credit card but we are in our three overdrafts to the sum of just under £1500 which worries me.

[notuniqueenough]

I have something like 300 odd pound on a credit card and my car payments. That's the only debt I have. But, I wasn't always like this!! Used to be thousands! Did the cliche of picking the thing with the most interest and focusing on that with what I could afford to pay off quicker (while still paying minimum on other cards). Then working my way through everything until it was at a manageable amount that I could take out a new credit card with a long 0% balance transfer, cut it up, and pay it all off. Took me a couple of years but I've never looked back.

[Titsywoo]

We've got about £9k on credit cards (although have some investments of about £4k that should increase a lot next year so might be able to pay most of it off then). It doesn't bother me but we could get it to zero in a few months if we were really tight. Depends how much you earn I guess.

[Brightsmoke]

Can you transfer the debt onto a lower/zero interest card? Or get a bank loan where interest will be cheaper? Sit down and have a proper talk about necessities and luxuries, set a realistic amount towards it each month. You could even put all the money into the debt and pay for things like fuel off of the CC, to reduce the interest.

Its not a huge amount of debt realistically, and if you can budget well, it will be gone before you know it :) Try things like meal planning if you don't already, bulk buying things you know you need etc

I'm sure loads of people will come along to say they are in a similar situation and with better ideas on helping

[notuniqueenough]

Also have a mortgage. Forgot to mention that

[ExcellentWorkThereMary]

About 3k. (Not including mortgage) On a debt management plan and it'll be cleared by July. Been a long journey. Debt is awful. No more credit cards for us, im never going back there again. It nearly broke us.

[PippaFawcett]

Apart from our very large mortgage with 29 years to run, we don't have any debt. We live from pay day to pay day though which worries me as we don't have any savings apart from the £50 per month we save for each DC a month.

[PlumsGalore]

No mortgage now and no credit card debts or loans for years.

We have had in the past and paid them off by transferring to a 0% deal so I knew we only had the transfer fee to pay, then trying to get as much paid off as possible during the term. It took so long to clear ours I vowed never to buy anything on a cc again unless the full balance was paid at month end.

[Titsywoo]

Oh yes ours is on a 0% deal - forgot to mention that

[Mrsemcgregor]

No cc or overdrafts but a 7.5k loan with 4 years left. I hate that we have that especially as the car we brought with it was a disaster and we were completely conned (long story)

[Littleballerina]

Family of 5 currently in no debt. Although I wish we had a mortgage rather than private rented.
Dp has a credit card but doesn't use it unless we really have to and then we pay it straight off.
We both work hard and only spend what we have. We're getting married soon and although we would like a biggish wedding it will be a small budget wedding so that we don't end up in debt.

[liz70]

Family of 5 here, no debts or mortgage, one income (£41k gross). We had a RO wedding 19 years ago, £35 dress, went to a Chinese restaurant after, and ploughed any savings we had into a deposit for our first home, a 3 bed flat. Now in a 3 bed semi, all paid. DH drives a 12 year old Zafira. Two SC holidays a year. We have to be careful all the time, but we manage okay.

[BingoBingoBingoBango]

We have a mortgage but apart from that I have a couple of hundred on my credit card and we borrowed some money off parents to pay for the car whin we pay back monthly. That's it. I hate being in debt.

[usernumbernonsense]

£6K in debt due to unpaid bills. No maintenance for 3 of my dc (unable to get it) and bills that were in stbxh name have been given to me. (I signed acknowledging I would take them over at a point in my life when I wasn't thinking straight)
Spoken to stepchange - will take me max 8 years to pay off.

Beyond pissed off but it is what it is.

[passingthrough1]

Just a mortgage. I've never considered letting myself get into debt but I know that's easier said for some depending on circumstances.
We buy our cars for cash and as a result have older cars than most people we know who have them on credit. I use credit cards but set up the direct debit for the full balance the first thing I do when I get the card.
I'll "borrow" from my own savings and pay myself back if needs be but I've always been very very anti debt. Even my student loan I overpaid on when I still had it which I know is ludicrous!

[SagelyNodding]

Just my student loan I hate having any debt hanging over me but I'm not earning enough to pay it back yet...living abroad so no automatic deductions. I feel like I'll never be able to pay it all off!

[Eatingcheeseontoast]

Try the moneysavingexpert website - really helpful advice.

Log what you spend and see what you can put towards paying off the debt. Try and shift it to 0% if it isn't already.

See what you can cut down on - shaving £10 a week off something and putting towards the debt is £520 paid off it....

[usernumbernonsense]

On the plus side try to always see a positive my dc are very good with money, and my dd knows to never rely on someone else as it can all go wrong in a day. Eldest ds (17) worries if he has less than £1000 in his bank account. Not great, but don't want any of them to end up like me.

[Newtssuitcase]

Just a fairly large mortgage (but we over pay and so it is coming down)

[GloGirl]

Family of 4
£2.5k credit card debt
£4k overdraft

Not including mortgage. We own the car outright.

Slowly just kept slipping for 2 years so new resolve to fix it all in 2017 hopefully start 2018 afresh.

[Littleballerina]

Oh I forgot my student loan. That comes out of my wages each month. Balls, so I am in debt!

[gabsdot]

We just this week finished paying our car loan. Hurray. But we need a new car so we'll be taking our another one soon.
Apart from that just the mortgage. about 90k outstanding.

[Olympiathequeen]

£500 on credit card but savings far outstrip that. I hate being in debt