To ask how much you owe on credit cards ?

[anxiousmotherof1]

Getting to the end of maternity leave and i just realized i owe quite a bit on credit cards ! Dont think is that much but my husband is of the opposite opinion !
So how much you currently owe ?

Do debts die with you?
This is a commonly held myth. While it's true to an extent, as always with these things it's a lot more complex than that.

If you have debts including credit card, loan or mortgage balances, then that amount will come out of your estate before your beneficiaries will get the money. If you don't have any assets at all then the debts will be written off. Here's three simplified examples to help explain it...

Debts £100,000, no assets.

This is simple, you've nothing to leave and no one has to take the debts.

Debts £40,000, you own a £200,000 home.

Here the debt will need paying or sorting from the estate before the person you left the home to can take it.

Debts £120,000, you own a £100,000 home.

Again for someone to get your home the debts will need clearing. Your beneficiary could choose to pay this to keep hold of the house, but of course it'd mean they'd take on the extra debt. Alternatively they could choose not to take the home.

Money Saving Expert extract above for the pp who said their debts die with them.

Yes, they don't die with you although if you have no assets those seeking the money will not get the money. Eg if you had a £50k life insurance from work or with your pension that would go to the company you owe the debt too first because your family got a penny.

( except assets held as joint tenants rather than tenants in common where I think those are outside your estate and automatically go to the other noint owner - actually if your life policy is in trust for your family I suspect it may go to the family not to your estate generally and might then be safe from your creditors.....)

Xenia I know my death in service payment from work is held in trust and goes to my nominated person(s) and does not form part of my estate so wouldn't be included in any payments of debts.

Yes, that's why I added my bit in brackets. it is always worth people doing that and these death in service you don't need a soliictor write a special trust. The insurers all have a standard form you can fill in. Do remember to change it if you divorce of course too.

Also is a credit card is in joint names with a partner both of you are liable for the whole lot so just be cautious about joint cards.

Ah crossed posted with your second post Xenia

Debts, particularly unsecured ones, are a HUGE source of stress and thus poor health.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
If you have credit card / store card / other variable payment debt
that is getting you down, try the standing order method

There are MN posters who have cleared tens of thousands of pounds in a couple of years without changing their monthly payment ....

11k. Low income. Bad combination. Every time I clear a chunk something comes up and I'm back where I started. So depressing.

MrsRhubarb
On the spreadsheets thread I linked is a free budgeting sheet
try it
at least to start to plan forwards ....

basically when you pay off a debt, that money becomes savings fund NOT spending
its blerdy tough at first but gets easier month by month

[if you look at the debt threads on the Money board you'll see that I used to be up to my eyeballs and got out so I'm not just pontificating]

Nothing. I don't have one, I wouldn't get one. I have no debts.

Namechanger22
Do you own our own home? Your own car? Do you have holidays?

I have all of those AND credit cards
because using credit cards is not bad in itself
nor is debt

my kids have shit loads of debt because they are at Uni
its an investment in their future

Zero

I own our home without a mortgage. I've never owned a car, I don't drive. We have holidays nearly every year, cheap ones. I spend very little day to day. I went to uni, but it was free back then, I also worked (often full-time) alongside my degree so I left with no debts. I'm happy to live a more frugal debt-free life.

Namechanger22
You bought a house without a mortgage - blimey you must be loaded

or do you just mean that you are old enough to have saved up
and forget what it was like to be young and poor
and like students today - graduating with £50,000 of debt

My house cost me £60k ..... five doors down is on sale for £275k

Those of us without housing debt need to be a LOT more attentive to the needs of others

£56. I buy a couple of things on it each month and pay it off in full, to help build my credit score

I'd like to know which CC people have with 0% interest? i know i can shop around, but just being nosey incase something has escaped my notice.

Perhaps Namechange has already repaird their mortgage .

Namechanger if you're that old that uni was free when you went then you can't really gloat about owning a home try funding a degree and a masters now with no family money or help then buy a house out right.

Namechanger if you're that old that uni was free when you went

😂😂😂 God I feel old.

It wasn’t so very far back that uni was free was it.

mozzchopsthirty the credit cards will die with me. Actually they don't as I found out when my parents died and left a debt of £47k. The credit companies will just start to hound the next of kin for the debt and will want the debts paid off from the sale of any property and whatever money is left.

£33,

It wasn’t so very far back that uni was free was it

I was in the first year that student loans were introduced along with tuition fees. Bastards. That was 1999

Same here catx we had to pay off my Dads cards from his estate, cc debt dies not die with you