How much debt are you in?

At 64 no debt and Ive paid off my mortgage. Im far too close to retirement to be in debt and any spare cash is going into my retirement fund.
The thought of £500k debt makes me feel physically sick OP.

This is mumsnet, where the rich come to hang out all day! I don't particularly think they are lying, they've just managed to find a forum where they all congregate to discuss their wealth. Good luck to them but its very far from how regular people live.

I wouldnt include a mortgage as a debt, no matter how big (unless you cant pay it!).
My mortgage is paid and I have zero debt.....but I also have zero savings so I dont consider myself 'safe'.

I have a bit of student loan left but I have WAY less than most people my age (26). I got bursary’s for my course but in first year I did take out the maintenance loan and spend a bunch of money just because I’d always been really poor. After that I was actually really sensible and lived within my means, worked, and used my scholarship/bursary to pay my bills. I also owe my dad £5 because we had a bet. 500k is insane.

If you count the mortgage then there’s obviously more but it’s not actually that high we’ve done pretty well paying it off. I know it’s bad but I can’t tell you the exact amount right now.

I don’t view a mortgage as a debt, if I didn’t have it that money would be going on rent anyway.

So me personally £7-8k which I’ve got down for £16k, as a couple £14k which we’ve reduced from £50k including a car.

We were both just terrible with money and racked up a lot of debt between us. Car is paid off this month, and debt will be paid off in the next year or two.

Mortgage of 186k
Credit card on 0% og £1600 which I'm paying the minimum on as it'll be paid off that way before the end of the 0% period.

I'm a LL and have 10 houses on interest only mortgages so on paper huge debt but if all houses were sold I'd have more than £700k left as each house has equity and I paid 25 percent deposit for each house. I don't see mortgages as debt if selling the houses would clear debt.

YABU
Mortgage isn’t debt like credit card debt for example, it’s an investment in home ownership
she has to live somewhere and would be renting otherwise ? Unless she’s an heiress!
the bank will have deemed her able to pay it off

Zero

Similar to your pal. Teeny bit less - about £450k. Plus 10k or so on a loan which I could pay off but it's lower interest than I'm making in my ISA.

It's not a hugely unusual amount to owe on a mortgage.

Zero

But not cos I’m clever or prone to good choices,

Store cards became a thing when I was a teen in the 80s. Debenhams made the grave error of letting me have one when I turned 18.

One FREE MONEY SHOPPING SPREE ! later, we both decided it wasn’t a good idea and my credit rating was wrecked cos I couldn’t pay it back in a timely fashion.

I never asked for any credit since then because there was no point given how badly I’d blotted my copy book.

And thenI left the country to places where credit was much more regulated. I figured between being foreign and fiscally unreliable on paper I’d save myself the embarrassment of being refused by just not asking.

Got diagnosed with ADHD over a decade ago (in Italy, where an adult ADHD diagnosis used to be almost unheard of, to the extent that no medications were approved for adults) and I think that early bad brush with limited credit probably did me a favour. Because had I been less humiliated by my “she’s crap with money and unreliable” certificate via credit rating, and eligible for more serious amounts of credit, I think I’d be drowning in debt at this point.

Surely it’s not really about “debt” but how manageable it is. Even huge profitable businesses have “debt” in some form, but it’s about its affordability. I have some debt on credit cards, but they are 0% credit cards and I have enough in savings to clear them if I needed to. The money in savings works harder accruing interest than it would by clearing off a 0% credit card unnecessarily when small monthly payments eventually clear it just the same. This approach can actually improve your credit score too.
But spiraling debt with high interest rates is a whole different type of “debt” iyswim.
A mortgage I don’t see as “debt” as such (you need somewhere to live so it’s more an investment) nor government student loans as they eventually disappear and you don’t repay or get penalised if your earnings drop below the repayment threshold.

Nothing. No mortgage, I rent from the council and can't see that changing any time soon.
No credit cards. No overdraft. I don't have much money and don't want to spend what I don't have.

Zero. I did have a mortgage but not any more. I hate the idea of debt so I don't use credit or loans - but I realise I am in a privileged position to be in that situation and I do get a lot of people need one or both to manage necessary costs.

Zero

I don’t my mortgage as debt but possibly would if it was exponentially higher than it needed to be and was living in a house that’s costs were way beyond my means. We have about £90k left on the mortgage but no other debt. Haven’t had any debt really in the last 25 years.

Well as a renter you're wasting your money aren't you.
You'll own nothing after paying the equivalent of a mortgage every month!

Then in retirement you're totally fucked.

I think your friend is the financially sensible one and you're pretty foolish.

Other than mortgage, none. We've always been debt free, both brought up to not buy anything we can't afford to save up for.

My mortgage is 600k.

Its on a house worth more than double that.

The borrowing is just over 2 times our combined income and we expect to pay it in 10 years when I'll be about 50. Its very manageable. We also have 130k of other investment assets and no other debt whatsoever so it really isnt unreasonable.

About £30k with the mortgage now we're nearing the end of the 25 year term, £3k of that is credit card debt from a holiday last year and that pisses me off, I can't imagine being in £500k debt i think id vomit daily 😭

My friend similar age to me (mid 40's) has about £300k debt from cards and remortgaging about every 3 years to pay for various things like cars and tbh just general living as they dont earn anywhere near the lifestyle they project, shes very open about that and thinks its hilarious but I get hives every time she mentions how much she owes 🤣

And hopefully you could get that money back just by selling the house so it's debt you could theoretically pay off any time, unlike unaffordable credit card debt

I lost my job 4.5 years ago and had about 15k of debt. I got a DRO which meant I never had to pay any back. Went back to uni for a masters to make sure my income stayed low so I wouldnt have to pay a penny towards it during that year. Debt is gone, I have a fantastic job and been approved for a mortgage on a lovely house in Hexham.

About 15 years ago we had debt of well over £600k. All of it was a new mortgage which is now paid down with just 25k outstanding… we will be mortgage free in 6 months. No other debt at all.

Other than our mortgage we have no debt, and 500k of debt on mortgage & student loans is very very different to 500k of credit card debt/loans.

mortgage paid, got about £90 on PayPal credit and also have a student loan but that’s never ever getting paid off as I only earn £30k. In fact I think it gets wiped in 2032.