To ask how much debt you are in?

[Sunshine3013]

Just that really.
Wondering how much debt the average person is in.. Including mortgage, loans, credit cards, overdraft?

Just curious!

Mortgage is roughly £190k outstanding and due to be paid when we’re 66 & 70.

Debt which is credit cards and loans is roughly £15k?? I think.

I have student loan of about £9k I think. DH has repaid his now.

The #debtfreecommunity on instagram is great for boosting morale and shifting away from normalising debt. Many followers loosely follow Dave Ramsey baby steps - would recommend, as following them turned my financial situation around.
This thread would be more interesting with ages given. My situation at 22, 32, 42 and 52 was wildly different.

Sunshine3013 that is a good deal imo, I recently bought a car and the best deal I could get was 13% - it was a lower amount though and my credit rating is shit. You'll probably come out better overall if you're otherwise going to be paying regular repair bills on your old car

I don’t regard inheriting as luck

It is compared with people who have had relatives die but didn't have money to pass on.

To answer the OPs question about the car loan, well that depends.

Can you afford the loan and any repairs etc that the car will require over the next 3 years? Will you keep the car to at least the end of the loan period and preferably a lot longer?

Could you buy a cheaper car with savings until you can afford an expensive car? Do you need such an expensive car?

Are you planning to save and buy a house, because having a big loan is likely to affect the affordibilty for a mortgage. Plus lots of other factors that I CBA to mention.

The problem with cars is that, they have a habit of requiring expensive repairs, that can be hard to afford along with loan payments. And paying more for a car is no guarantee that it's less likely to need work. Just that, because it's worth money, you can't just scrap it and get another cheap one, you have to pay for it to be repaired or else you have the loan and no car.

Just the mortgage, I've never learnt enough to afford debt. And yes I did the using the laundrette, no car, buying furniture for a tenner thing for years.

Klarna £18.80
DS1 £5ish he picked up a bit of shopping for me the other day

£194000 on mortgage with 21 years left. No loans, overdraft and credit cards are paid off in full each month if used. We live within our means and ensure we could survive okay on one salary if one of us lost our job.

Just our mortgage (180k) will be paid off by mid 40's if we stay put. One car loan between us - other car owned outright.

mortgage - £195,000, house is worth around £270,000
loans - about £80, I've nearly finished paying back a sofa
credit card - £70 currently but pay it back in full every month
overdraft - 0
student loan - about £500, another debt that'll clear this summer

very fortunate. The only real debt I have is the mortgage which is very affordable.

I responded a few pages back and I promise it wasn’t to brag or make people feel depressed - I am sorry if I did.

I pointed out on mine that inheritance got me my home. Not outright, by no stretch. If I stay single, on the current rate, don’t hit financial disaster, don’t borrow anymore and don’t move again it will be paid off in 19 years.

The OP asked a question and some people raised their circumstances surrounding their situation. I’m in my position of my “only” debt being my mortgage, yes, due to inheritance, including loosing a parent young therefore a generation was skipped. I would rather have my family back.

I threw some of the inheritance at my student debt because otherwise it would just be hanging over my head. Money in a black hole. I know I was lucky to clear that.

I don’t have a car (I can’t have a car) and that’s a big expense for most which saves me a fortune. Car cost, petrol, tax, insurance.....
Swings and roundabouts though. It also limits my job prospects. But sadly that choice is not mine.

My savings have taken years. I resent the extremes of being told I haven’t worked for what I have. I’ve worked hard and been underpaid my whole working life like so many people and have done my best. My inheritance got me my house but my work and saving got me everything in it (slowly) and got it into a much better state than the shell it initially was. If I didn’t work I would be as stumped as the next. I’m in the independent sector and the pandemic has made me bloody nervous of what I could loose. I’ve been redundant before. It’s scary. I had nothing in the bank when that happened. I’ve been there.

I don’t judge anyone for debt. If I hadn’t have had inheritance god only knows what position I would be in despite working full time since graduating and part time since 16. I would have had to move areas (good old south east) and probably wouldn’t have stuck with Early Years (now a teacher though).

The way the cards are dealt in this life are not fair. Money being passed down, jobs being handed out through nepotism, bad landlords, job loss, health. I would rather people who are doing amazingly well for their age just be honest and say “yes I inherited” “yes my parents gave me my deposit” “yeah my parents gave me their second home rent free so I could save”. Honesty isn’t bragging if they can see that they wouldn’t have what they have without it. It is bragging if they suggest everyone just does the same or ignores their position.

None. Mortgage is paid. I’ve never been in debt (mortgage aside) in my life. I’ve never even had an overdraft! I’ve always been a saver, although I do like nice things and good quality items but I save for them. If I can’t afford to buy something, I don’t buy it 🤷🏼‍♀️ If I do use my credit card, it’s only up to an amount I know I can easily pay when the bill comes in and then I pay it on full

@Sunshine3013

£0.

No mortgage, no loans, no debts, no overdraft, nothing owing on our one storecard each, no car finance, and nothing owing on our one credit card each. Everything we have is owned and paid for.

Hasn't always been this way, and we have had debt in the past, but not for the past ten years.

Mortgage debt £144k, both of us have student loans probably around £40k in total, we had to take bounce back loans over covid as both self employed £35k... we had to borrow from DP's dad for the deposit for the house £10k. Plus paying £180 a month for the kitchen. A lot of debt 😬

None. We are mortgage free(paid off early)and credit card is paid off in full every month by direct debit.
The only debt we have ever had was our mortgage and even then it was pretty small. Our monthly council tax was more than our monthly mortgage payments.

I'm 47. We have a mortgage between us at around £200k. I own another property outright, but don't want to sell it/play around with it as it's my retirement fund really. I don't rent it out as it's in a nice place in Cornwall and we treat it like a holiday home. We don't have any other debt, and have a decent amount of money in the bank. About to spend a chunk of that on an extension though.

My parents gave me £5k when I was 19 as a deposit for a house. I've used that carefully and in the last place I sold before buying with my partner, I took out £120k after the mortgage was paid. I was 37 at the time. He put a £60k inheritance into our house, I used some of the equity from my place as salary for maternity leave. Our current house is more mine than his.

We drive crap old cars and don't seem to spend much money really. The only thing we spent big money on was holidays and restaurants, and those aren't happening at the moment so we've managed to save OK. We both have key worker jobs from a covid perspective, and have worked in/out of the house since last March as relatively normal.

It's all luck, innit.

@Perfect28 DP actually does like to nap on the floor in the living room, it gets the afternoon sun...
I don’t dispute that it’s more expensive to be poor, and I’ve stood in the supermarket counting the shrapnel in my purse to see whether I need to put something back. Just for me, debt is the ultimate last resort prior to becoming homeless, not something I use for things that I can live without, like furniture.

Just the mortgage. 70k.

Just turned 30 (think age is important to mention). I have £150k mortgage and £9k student loans. No other debts, nothing on finance and no overdraft

None. We are saving up to buy one day, so one day we’ll have a mortgage. Otherwise, don’t she overdraft, pay credit cards off every month. When I was a student for various reasons I ended up with Tina of debt, including CC and student loans. It took me years to pay it off. Now that it’s gone I try to avoid it and DH just doesn’t spend money. For his birthday he always asks for socks and work shirts

Mortgage only, no loands or overdraft or cards.

You won't get the average person on here. And if you do, you won't recognise them in amongst all the non-average people. You'll get some people who feel a lot of anxiety about their debt and will want to post because they want to share their burden. You'll get some proud peacocks who are debt free. Those people will skew the truthful accounts of many who are simply being open and honest in answering your question.

In short, your study is fatally flawed. Here's a better one:

www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-do-i-need-to-know-about-debt

I rent so no mortgage
I have 3k left of a 5k loan
And 1300 on credit card that I am paying back on zero per cent offer. I aim to clear this by end of year.

I have tried to save for a mortgage deposit but life gets in the way. I really want to get on property ladder before I’m 40

Mortgage and one loan with about 2 years left until it's paid off. We only had a few years of our mortgage left to pay though before and have just increased it for our new house and now back to 18 years to go...

Have also spent the past year clearing all our credit card debt though, so we were in a good position to get our new mortgage when we moved house a couple of weeks ago.

1300 on a credit card. No mortgage though. And student loan has 2k left on it.

About £18000 credit card debt - have changed to no interest cards and am paying off at £500 at least each month. Already paid off a chunk that way