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.

[20viona]

Myself and my husband earn around 55k between us a year so by no means flush.
We have been to Las Vegas 7 times in the last 7 years aswell as at least one other holiday every year.
We got married 3 years ago and spent £7k on honeymoon alone.
We have a 4 bed detached house and our mortgage is £560 a month with 22 years remaining on it.
67 plate 4x4 on the drive and a work car.
We are 30 years old. We have just had a baby.

We have absolutely ZERO debt minus the mortgage. No car finance no credit cards,
Never spend beyond our means and if we can't afford it we don't buy it. It's that simple.
If you budget it can work!

[20viona]

Oh and we have around £45k savings.

[Clockonmantlepiece]

I have 50k left on my mortgage. No debts.

I save for cars and buy non flashy ones. Around £3000. My cars last around 8 years.
I'm in my 40s.

[D4rwin]

We don't buy cars on credit. Have no money on cards. We do have about 75k left on a mortgage which is quite high. Our income is 90k. It's very stressful having so much debt. My husband loves pricey holidays and I would prefer to play it safe until we are debt free but I understand his point that by then our children won't be small to enjoy the holidays with us.

[LizzyAnna99]

I’m on £16,000 a year and have £8k debt which is my car finance, as well as a £120,000 mortgage

[TableNiner]

I guess some people prefer to live in the ‘now’/ I could get run over by a bus tomorrow. Personally I want to get the mortgage paid off as quickly as possible, as to me that offers more choice and freedom in the future

[Winebottle]

We had more than our combined gross income on credit cards a few years ago. I am generally pro debt but there have been times when I was worried about paying and that is no fun.

[rainygarden]

I'm finding this thread fascinating. Our joint income is about £100k, we owe £270k on a house worth £800k and no other debt, too old for student debts. We have a toddler, no car, we holiday a lot and eat nice quality food and wear nice clothes but that's about it for spending. My parents were and are extremely frugal and have given and lent money to us for the mortgage.

[Tootletum]

We have a mortgage of about £200,000. Bought our cars with cash. Collective income is about £160,000, of which we spend about 70%. No debts. Have about 100ks worth of renovation we've not done on the house though, it's a wreck.

[Sk191]

My husband and I earn 50k between us so not high earners, we sound like we have done things in a similar timeline to the friends you describe OP. But we dont have any debt other than our mortgage, we both lived at home pre buying our own home and were fortunate enough not to pay board. We married in our late twenties so had years of savings behind us. We have in the last few years, brought a house, got married, renovated the house and I'm expecting our first child. Both our cars are owned outright, we dont go on holidays all the time although the last few years we have done more so with honeymoon and big birthdays. But we reign it in and save every month without fail and dont live extravagantly. Ie we cook and eat all our meals from scratch and rarely pre covid went out for meals.

[ItWasntMyFault]

I earn just under £33k and have a mortgage of £46k on a house worth about £325k.

I paid cash for my car and have no other debts or overdraft.

I am in my 50s though so it took a while to get this far.

[Megatron]

Mortgage is now about £22K, cars are ours, no other debt.

[Pickles89]

I don't have any debt at all, and my main aim in life is to keep it that way! Except I'd like to buy a house one day, and I'd need a mortgage for that, but I'd like to think I'd never take a loan for anything else. On the flip side I don't have any assets apart from my not-very-impressive savings, and I earn a piddling amount.

[Di11y]

family (mine and DH's) have paid towards wedding, honeymoon and house deposit. neither us or our families are higher earners so you wouldn't expect it.

[BullshitVivienne]

Finding this all so interesting. I wonder if Mumsnet posters are representative of the wider population. My theory is that people are more debt averse as they get older, but also maybe we're all a bit more scared generated of debt. I think Martin Lewis has influenced a lot of people, including me. In my mid 20s, I had an overdraft of about £1500 and a 0% interest credit card that had about £5k on it. I didn't really care as I had months to pay it off (which I did). When I met my partner and we moved in together, I took my finances way more seriously. Now we have a mortgage, but no other debt, though he still has his student loan.

[40somethingJBJ]

I’ve got about £150 on my Nect account, plus a bit of student loan still. No mortgage or car loan, but I’m driving round in a 12yo car and the house needs lots of work on it to bring it even vaguely up to date.

[TwoZeroTwoZero]

Together we earn ~£25K. We owe about £5K on a loan and £9K on various credit cards. We also have car finance. We're just about scraping by with a lot of help.

[Ducky1900]

Nope. I'm finally close cleaning my debts.
I've got 800 on a credit card, finally able to pay 100 off a month, so it'll be done in no time.
It was 1300!
And I had a 5k loan, I consolidated uni debt... that finishes finally in January.
I'm 30, not too bad going!
So come January, I'll be £286 better off a month.

[Hedgehog44]

We had this conversation the other day. We have about £50k coming in but because I am a discharged bankrupt I can't really get credit so we have very little debt but can't afford to do anything!

[LizzyAnna99]

@LizzyAnna99

I’m on £16,000 a year and have £8k debt which is my car finance, as well as a £120,000 mortgage

Oh and I’m 20 by the way and at university

[notalwaysalondoner]

Forgot to say, although we have literally zero debt right now aged 30 as we paid off our shared ownership mortgage and our student loans, we will be taking on a very very substantial mortgage in the next year or so as we will be moving to a family home in zone 2-3. But it will be a smaller mortgage than we could take on as we want to make sure we could afford it on one salary - this was always our mindset but the Covid crisis has just made it even more obvious how you can’t assume your salary is safe even in a high income stable career.

I’d also say we have always made decisions that we don’t necessarily have to, but have saved us huge huge amounts of money in the long term. In particular, always living in house shares as a couple in our twenties (probably not as relevant outside of London) and then having a lodger once we bought our house. We didn’t need to do these things on our substantial salaries, but it has meant we could pay off our small mortgage within literally a couple of years.

I really think it’s a mindset thing - being in debt is all very well if you can afford to service it, but once something goes wrong like you lose your job, it can all escalate out of control very very quickly.

[winetime89]

Joint income about 46k
mortgage 130k left to pay, house worth about 190-200k
two credit cards 3k
Car loan 12 k
sofa finance 1k
really regret the car, got another 4.5 years till it's payed off, pay 265 a month.

[CloudPop]

I’m on £16,000 a year and have £8k debt which is my car finance, as well as a £120,000 mortgage

Genuinely interested in how you can borrow 120,000 on a mortgage with a 16k income ?

[coffeeandpyjamas]

I find these threads so fascinating as they show the difference. DH and I have around £20k of debt which came about in our mid-20s through a combination of spending recklessly, not having a proper budget, & DH being unemployed for 6 months. The figure was much higher a few years ago and it’s my aim to be debt free in 3 years time. My car finance has just under £1000 left a I can’t wait until it’s paid off. Never getting one on finance again. Our house hold income is around £40k per annum.

[Dr273]

As @Timeforabiscuit* said...

Honestly, people have windfalls, early (sometimes tragic) inheritances, help from family, or are actually extremely well paid.

Others are excellent at managing money, stretching food budgets, holiday deals, doing lots of research of the most cost effective offers*

For us, both of these. Our incomes are in your bracket. We have 1 child.