To think a lot of people must have a high amount of debt

[user495827]

I wouldn't dream of being nosey enough to ask people in real life. So thought I would ask on here. I'm asking more from people with average incomes rather than very high. When I say average I suppose I mean around £20000 to £35000
I'm from the North West which I think is relevant as the average house price /wage is lower than the South.
A lot of my friends and their partners are in this bracket. They seem to spend a lot of money. One friend, for example, got married last year a beautiful wedding easily £10000. A honeymoon to Dubai and also a mini moon to Paris. Beginning of this year they bought a house and are completely renovating it top to bottom. I happen to know her salary just through conversations is £25000. Her husbands job probably pays around £30000. Another friend again completely renovating a new house. Both have Audi's cars on finance.
AIBU to think a lot of people spend like this now and that it is normal to have very high debts/high mortgage?
I know it's not my business I certainly don't begrudge them and how they spend their money. I use to earn similar but im now part time and I suppose I'm abit of a saver.

Our only debt is a large mortgage.

Have never had a credit card and have never bought anything on finance or taken out any other loans.

Joint income of about £120,000, mortgage of £130,000 on a £700,000 house - this is the result of careful saving & property purchases no other debts. Always been very careful with money & pay off credit cards every month.

Have a toddler so trying to save for future costs in case one of us decides to stay at home.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I think people should be distinguishing between debt. As pp said some such as mortgage or even car are secured by house or the said car so if something goes wrong it is covered. Understandably though no one wants to lose house.

Unsecured debt is what is an issue imo. Credit cards, loans, certain payment plans.

Btw you can get couple of years old audi for like 200-250 quid a month nowadays on payments. That said though, like you and some others I suspect that some people have debt I couldn't live with, because how else do you explain someone not even working being able to afford 2 abroad holidays a year, regular cosmetic procedures, new tech etc. I wouldn't even clock it though if the person wasn't the loudest "what do you think about my new x".

It all has to be paid back though (unless you don't earn enough to pay back student finance), debt is debt.

Debt is fine, but you have to pay it off.
For me growing up seeing so many recessions and realising that nobody has a safe job, debt wasn't for me.
Me and dh have never had a credit card, and everything we have bought we own. We saved until we could afford it, sometimes doing without because once we'd saved we didn't need it anymore, so our savings grew.
It's each to their own though, some people aren't bothered about taking risks, I couldn't sleep at night.

Dh and I balance each other out to be in this bracket, live in Gloucestershire, young kids. We've got some debts, mortgage is the biggy £165k left, then there's about £15k on a house loan, car, credit card. Dh wanted us to get a car last year which would have been another £10k on top, I drew the line at that and we had a huge falling out. Bloody glad now though, it would been been sat on the drive all through this covid crisis! Dh thinks its 'normal' to have debt and not a problem if you can manage the repayments, and we should be able to afford nice things on his good wage £43k (I'm p/t).

I think 25,000 - 35,000 is a pretty low family income.

I live in the north west. I run payroll for construction company. Looking at the average salaries of the workers on site (I’m not talking managers I’d say mates are on about £23-25k, tradesmen on £25-30k and supervisors up to £35k.

If you account for the fact that in a two income family one might only be part time or earn less that’s still a family income of £40-60k

We earn about £40k each and live in London...so mortgage has been big.

No debt except £130 on the mortgage, but we have that on a smart mortgage and are overpaying.

Not when we were in the maternity leave years, the paying-for-childcare years.

I would never get into debt for a smart car, or any car above the spec we need, we have enjoyed holidays abroad, on DIY villa and cheap flight arrangements, never felt we have gone without or lived frugal lives.

True, our kitchen and bathroom have not been 'done' in many years - I am aghast when I see people complain about kitchens that are of a much better standard than mine, and people I know who are on less money but always taking on finance for kitchens and bathrooms. And it isn't as if we live in a hovel. I just don't feel the need to spend money / live in a showhome.

The people I know who have debt have racked it up on holidays, cars, kitchens and bathrooms.

Household income 40kish no debt aside from 87ish mortgage. Property worth around 400k
Roughly 15k in savings and 10k in shares

I feel we are lucky though.

We have never had any debt apart from mortgage and student loan and I hate the idea of having any debt.

We don't earn a huge amount but I don't feel like we go without. We got married without incurring any debt, spend quite a lot on travelling, and have recently bought a brand new car outright (of course it cost nowhere near as much as an Audi would have). We just save for everything in advance and find we can afford more this way as we're never paying interest on the things we buy.

We have a joint income of £60k and at one point had 2 kids at private school!

I have a company car so no expenses there. We have a mortgage of £125k but no other debt.

Made it a priority to clear any mortgage we had within 10 years which meant we worked in a number of countries on 12 month contracts . That proved a challenge and I wouldn't want to do it again but we made enough to pay for the house within 5 years. That has given us the ability to be flexible in where we work. We do have some residual debt , about £5,000 but thats covered by assets if we need to clear that.

Household income about 25k, we don’t have any debt except my student loans which I don’t really count as the interest that gets added to them means I’ll never pay them back in full anyway! I think of the payments as more like a graduate tax.

We don’t have a mortgage yet as still renting but don’t like buying things on credit. I saved up and bought my car outright.

I qualified as a staff nurse in 2007 (mature student). I worked until I had a car accident in 2017 and haven’t been able to work since. When I qualified I had about £2k in savings and I was determined to save as much as I could. My husband was already disabled and unable to work and survived on sick benefit (or whatever it’s title now is) so very little income there. I personally think nhs nurses (and other staff) are pretty well paid, with excellent sick and maternity conditions. I was able to save about £500 a month, after paying mortgage bills etc.

My savings, when I had to give up work were just over £65k. Unfortunately this means I’m not entitled to much in benefits, but I got a lump sum of £18k and pension of £300 per month. Savings are currently just over £80k.

Me and dp earn around £24k a year between us. We live in the north west and dont have a mortgage or a lot in savings but i have just paid off my credit card debt. I will use the cc if i reqlly need the money fast for example we want to buy a car soon. I am not bad with money but i do need to look for more work and save up. Debt scares me but my parents are 20k in debt on top of their mortgage they have never been on holiday or anything. Its a tough life.

Me and DH are both in that wage bracket, approx. 40k household income and have quite different spending habits though over the years we've met in the middle and compromised - he grew up in a relatively poor family in rural Poland and is very thrifty, rarely buys new clothes or non-essentials like takeaway coffees etc, and used to be reluctant to buy anything on credit. I grew up in a financially secure family and always knew I had a safety net but in my case I think that led to poor spending habits and complacency (especially when I was a student) - I'd routinely get into my overdraft, buying random crap I didn't need and never putting aside any savings. I'm better now but still spend a bit too much on food or coffee etc when I'm out and about.

I've just paid off one credit card (3k) over less than a year, we bought our car outright (second hand) and now the only debt I have personally is my Student Loan (which I barely notice as repayments are not that high) and about £100 on my main credit card which I clear each month. We bought a TV on 0% credit but only because spreading out the payments was more convenient, we could have bought it outright and that's been paid off. DH has a decent amount of savings and no debt whatsoever.

We're about to take out our first mortgage so that's made me more conscious of my spending habits, interestingly our broker mentioned that most of her Polish clients didn't buy things on credit at all and very much lived within their means.

We've a joint income of around 120k

We owe 120k on a mortgage with house worth around 550k

We have debt but it's 'good' debt as it's all interest free and better than using our savings (around 25k).
5k remaining on car loan
3k remaining on career development loan
1.5k remaining on sofa
3k remaining on kitchen
£500 on credit card

Combined income under 50k. Student loan of 8k plus 60k left on mortgage, no other debts. 140/150k combined savings.

Both in our 40s and house value is circa £210k.

Couple - joint salary of 95k

Mortgage of 120k - 13 years left.

6kish of credit card/car loan debt.

Would quite like to get rid of credit card debt but I do like buying 'stuff'

Wow, I earn 15k before tax, NI and pension. No debt but what do you do? I’m just a modest administrator (Full time, north Scotland)

£8,000 low interest loan. £5,000 no interest loan to parents - both paid back monthly. No CCs or overdraft.

No idea what our student loans are.

We’ve got £9,000 in savings. £100K left on the mortgage and approximately 90K equity in the house.

We have combined annual income of approximately 44k.

18k between us. Bought 1st property, now rent it out DP's mum lent us a chunky deposit and I had savings. Used equity for deposit on second property which we now live in. Both are small but fine for us. Apart from the combined mortgages (which we try to overpay each year) and a student loan which will never be paid, we have no debt.

Am much happier that way. If anything bad happened, at least we would just about have enough to cover bills and food. Mortgages covered by life insurance. Drive second hand car.

Probably our attitude is influenced by both being brought up by single mums - they worked hard to keep afloat and were lucky enough to avoid debt. We could easily take money ccards etc and do up our home or get a posher car but we agree it would not make us any happier.

I think a lot of younger people have unrealistic expectations about their lifestyle and spending habits and in part it's probably fuelled by social media. You only have to see where students eat and drink compared to where they would have 20 years ago, they're in the finest bars and restaurants and carrying the latest mobile and designer handbags round here. A lot of our graduates at work have better cars than the senior management but they still live with their parents so clearly a flashy car is higher on their priority list than saving for a property.
Some people live within their means, some don't, and others have different priorities and "essentials". Personally a ski holiday wouldn't be on my list of essentials if I had a credit card load of debt.

I’m 32. I have one daughter
My husband and I earn £75,000 combined.

We have a mortgage for £140,000 left on a £220,000 house. We have no other debt other than a student fee loan and have around 15k in savings. The bulk of our money go in to renovating the house. We moved here 3 year ago on a £160,000 mortgage so have managed to get it down substantially in that time as well as substantially updating it

My husband drives a Suzuki swift (bought used fully) and I drive a Mitsubishi asx (it’s now 10 year old and has multiple rusty spots) but they both work fine and we don’t need better cars. We usually have a foreign holiday every 3 years or so and go full out (touring America, Australia and Europe on 3 different holidays) but go to U.K. holidays every year (dogs and a young child with eczema)

I feel nervous when I owe money. I don’t think I could owe that amount of money and sleep. I did use to have finance for sofas, cars etc when we didn’t earn the money we do now but since our careers developed further I try to keep debt free