To wonder if we have a lot more debt?

[Noseytoday]

We have £7k of debts, mixture of major house repair work, holiday, getting pregnant much quicker than expected and so not having long to save for maternity leave. We are now focusing on paying it off each month and its going down but it really stresses me out. My DH isn't as worried, he thinks a lot of people probably have similar. Does this sound fairly normal or not?

No point paying off family loan as no interest on it
WOW. I'd like to nominate @PookieDo for the Cheeky fucker of the month award.

I keep my debt to interest free credit card, and always less than savings so could repay if have too. Mainly used for house ins, car ins, works out less than interest charges if paid the insurance direct monthly.

Prefer to keep savings in case of emergencies.

Thank you Excited0803 😂 I am so honoured

Firstly you don’t know the circumstances of the loan or the family member* and secondly I don’t know what about it makes me cheeky as it is the arrangement that was agreed! I am just saying I am not going to pay it off at more than £100. But I am paying it 😂

I have never been able to afford to pay it back more than £100 a month until this month, and using all the savings to pay it back will just leave me with no Christmas money and no emergency fund all over again. I’m not planning on paying my family member back only £100 a month but buying myself a designer handbag.

*FYI family member gave adult children money out of an inheritance then spent all the inheritance and got into double figures of thousands of debt through stupid decisions and grandiose living now needs money back to be able to continue to drink a lot of alcohol/be a stupid twat.

Next year I will have to probably get a car on finance (mine is awful) and will try pay off family member sooner

Also see last paragraph

I don't think we should normalise debt however.... credit is so readily available that has become normal.

I have mortgage debt and student loan but that's it. If I can't afford it then I don't buy it.

why do some people have debts but then acknowledge that they have enough savings to clear the debt but choose not to?

It's prudent to have some savings immediately available in case you have an emergency of some sort. You might not be able to borrow for it, but you can't be stopped from accessing your own money.

We have no debt. Both of us are happy to live a fairly frugal lifestyle. The majority of our clothes are from charity shops as is our furniture. We get given a lot of hand-me-downs for the Dcs. I look out for bargains (for example I shop at end of season sales for things for next year for dcs). We own our clapped-out car outright and will use it until it gives up the ghost. I usually shop in budget food shops or on the reduced shelf (freezer full of bargains). The thought of any debt scares the hell out of me. I wonder if people with large debts have just got to the point where the figures are meaningless?

So @PookieDo - your family member is in debt themselves, you owe them and have an ability to pay more back yet you choose not to repay your debt to them faster. Your justification for this boils down to thinking they are a twat. It's fascinating that you don't see how cheeky that is.

@ Excited0803 if it isn’t clear, it wasn’t a loan. It’s been converted into a loan by me, agreeing to give it back to help. It was a gift of inheritance years ago and now they are in debt of their own doing (and it’s too complicated to go into but involves insurance fraud gone wrong in a way)

I wish I had never accepted it when I did now anyway as I am tied to them when I don’t want to be - abusive parent. So no I don’t really care about their debt that much for other much more complex reasons. While I have struggled by myself with my DC for years they have had nice cars, houses, flashy holidays - my heart bleeds for them....

So no they can’t have my Xmas money that is for my kids, whom they never bother with either

And next year I will try to clear it quicker. But not this year as it isn’t the one with interest on it like the other one

I don’t know why I have to explain myself so much over this. It is September now and I have just started saving with only 3 more paydays before Xmas. This year I have had no holiday and now work 60+ hours a week. Are you suggesting I give all the savings plus the £100 a month to my family member and leave myself with nothing in savings for Xmas/car repairs and to not do so is ‘cheeky?’ Or is it just sensible, none of your business and you are trying to pick a fight with me? Technically I don’t have to pay anything back at all as no agreement whatsoever and would not stand up in court. But I am paying it back just not at the rate you see fit 😂

We owe just shy of £18000. Kitchen loan interest free and car loan at 2.8%. Own our house outright but fitting the kitchen wiped out our savings.
My wages have stagnated over the last 10 years and I now work full time for less than I got for 3 nights a week 10 years ago.
Am terrified about retirement as we have 2 kids tocget through uni before we can even start thinking about pension for DH and they both want to do 7 year courses. So they will leave uni as I turn 51/52. Then we have to sort ourselves and in the meantime, we have to live and replace car/s boiler etc.

We owe about $50k in a home equity loan on a house that's worth about $600k and has no mortgage. Other than that no car loans, credit cards get paid off every month, etc.

But we have one child who just started uni and another who will start in two years. We have quite a bit put aside for each, but the expense will depend on how expensive the uni is after scholarships. DS who just started will probably have about 80% covered by savings, DD is an unknown at this point as she hasn't even started looking at uni's. And we only have about 6-7 to finish saving for retirement. I'd like to be able to pass along the cars we have now to the kids, but then we'd have to buy new ones.

as we have 2 kids tocget through uni before we can even start thinking about pension for DH and they both want to do 7 year courses

So your kids will have to do what other students do and take out Loans. What subject are they doing that takes 7 years?

Former colleague of mine and his wife did without for years and sacrificed saving for retirement to get both Daughters through Law School. Soon after graduation they became pregnant, got married (in that order) and have never worked since as the well off husbands they caught at University earn enough to support the families without the need for wife to work. So their Degree was pointless the way things worked out in parents eyes.

PookieDo I understand the family loan thing. DHs DGF gave us a loan to help us but this house, but the terms of the loan are so flexible we aren't actually expected to pay it back, unless he needs it for care. And that's unlikely as he has plenty of other savings and investments and lots of equity in his home. It'll come off any inheritance if we get that far. If we're in a position to pay him back in a lump sum in the future then we will.