Page 5 | How much debt do you carry?

Treamcea · 2024-04-30T17:13:08+00:00

for those of you that are willing to share…. How much non mortgage debt to you carry and is it manageable, or does it keep you awake at night?

greengreyblue · 30/04/2024 21:55

No mortgage , no debt. Both early 50s so mortgage paid off over 23 years. Have lived in house for 22 years and didn’t make the move to a bigger house that some of our contemporaries did. That means we have lots of spare income but a smaller house.This is fine now as only one DC left. DH has company car, mine was bought outright. DC are adult and only one is still at home but works .

Kona84 · 30/04/2024 22:08

12k loan.
I consolidated a couple of cards and a loan as the payments across all 4 products was nearly £400pm and that was just paying the minimum on a 2 of the accounts.
I had 5 years left on the loan so I took out a new loan for just 5years to pay back all of the accounts it’s lowered my monthly payment to £253pm and my intention is to overpay it when I can to get rid of it within 4 years instead of 5.
the debt built up while on mat leave - a few big repairs that I couldn’t cover as I had no savings left after Mat leave.
the £400pm was starting to stress me out but I feel I can breathe a bit again now.

Happyhappyday · 30/04/2024 22:11

No debt. Mortgage is very manageable and fixed for 30 years at 2.2%. I still lay awake worrying about money… I grew up in a very frugal family and even though by any measure, we’re doing great financially (saving 20% gross in pensions, 6 months expenses saved, further 6 months in an easy to access index fund, could survive on one income, both earn 6 figures), I always worry I’m doing it wrong and we’re not saving enough 🤷‍♀️.

Flopsy145 · 30/04/2024 22:18

A 12k loan (down from £16k), which is jointly paid by my DH and I and about 12k across 3 credit cards, 1 of which my DH pays the minimum amount on.
The minimum payments on the other two (combined about £250 per month) do cause me to struggle, if I didn't have to pay them I would get by every month (albeit with nothing left over). One of my credit cards is charging interest as well so my min payments are basically not budging.
I'm not sure there's much else to do until one of us gets a pay rise and can chip away at it, or a debt consolidation loan that just pays it all off and my DH just pays a bigger share as is his income is higher, then all credit cards are shut except one for emergency. But i just need to keep chipping away for now as I don't qualify for a debt consolidation loan right now, it's stressful but I try not to worry and just make my min payments and not add anymore to them, easier says than done sometimes

kendermine · 30/04/2024 22:19

About £80k in personal loans. It's manageable and it doesn't keep me awake at night. I have enough assets that I could pay it all off tomorrow if I wanted, but it wouldn't make financial sense.

Jegersur · 30/04/2024 22:23

None. I don’t have a mortgage or a car or any loans.

Dominicains · 30/04/2024 22:27

2 mortgages and 7000 on a home improvement loan that I hope to pay off this year plus PCP on car, but I will change car at the end of the term to a cheaper PCP as I don’t want “own” a car and all the costs involved.

Pharmacyhelp · 30/04/2024 22:31

£6.4k on a secure bank loan (old excellent interest rate) , £2.7k on a 0% credit card plus mortgage. The bank loan I’m not bothered about, it’s affordable and a good rate. Will be paid off in 2.5 years. The credit card I’d like to pay off asap.

mlc0 · 30/04/2024 22:32

About 5k between me and DH on a credit card

LuluBlakey1 · 30/04/2024 22:32

None. We paid the mortgage off and have no other debt. If we can't afford it, we don't buy it.

Pigeonqueen · 30/04/2024 22:36

Quite a lot. We’re very low income as well (tax credits, dh works full time but low ish wage, Ds and I get disability benefits). I often worry about it but then know it’s being paid off albeit slowly. A lot of it was from when we had issues with the house (damp / roof related) which we needed to fix and then dh got made redundant so we had a gap between his jobs. It was hard. It always annoys me when people seem so smug about not having any debt. If you have a house and a low income in particular sometimes it’s just unavoidable. If something needs fixing you can only ignore it for so long. We weren’t always badly off, I used to be a high earner - hence the mortgage free house- but there’s always something that needs doing.

Weeteeny · 30/04/2024 23:03

I have 3500 on a credit card plus £900 left on a loan for a new kitchen. I should have the kitchen paid off in August and the £3500 by September.
2.5 years ago I had £20k legal fees plus 10k credit card, plus the kitchen which was 9k..I truly thought I was going under.
I am not a frivolous spender this built up.scarily fast. One thing after another.D

Kitchen loan was first and at the timd.of arranging was entirely affordable.
Then a legal situation arose. I dont regret these costs i would go down this road again and pay twice as much to protect my DC.

Then a funeral to pay for. (Not related to legal scenario!)
Then car repairs,
Gas electric costs, cost of living . DS1 heading to university. etc

Life situations arise and its scary how things can spiral.

But I have chipped away and am proud of myself for everything I have done . I have worked bloody hard and stuck to my plans. I literally changed the way I live.

I try to shop as economically as possible. Leave my debit card at home so I am not tempted to do an extra shop etc
Cut out all the small unecessary costs that add up. I have not bought myself anything in a life time. It's worth it

I am beginning to have a little extra cash now and that tends to go to DSs. That gives me pleasure.
I am at the stage now i get a buzz every month paying off as much as possible and knowing I am nearly there. Can't wait till its gone!

I will have extra cash but my aim Then will be to still live frugally and put into savings and share with DSs . That would make me happy .

ThirtyThrillionThreeTrees · 01/05/2024 00:05

None but there's a lot of reasons for it, no children so less outgoings than a lot of people, parents always encouraged savings from a young age (even with birthday money, buy something now & put rest in moneybox to save for a big treat later) and my first job was in debt collection.

HollyKnight · 01/05/2024 00:45

None, thank goodness. I grew up in poverty. Single-parent family. Watched my mum spiral deeper and deeper into debt until she was suicidal.
I avoid it at all costs. Having to buy my first car on finance nearly gave me a nervous breakdown. I don't have any debt now. Been completely debt-free for about 8 years now. My DH is a bit more relaxed when it comes to debt. He has a credit card and student loans. Nothing huge though.

AppleDumplingWithCustard · 01/05/2024 00:50

Only my credit card that I pay the entire balance each month.

lovinglaughingliving · 01/05/2024 01:41

Plenty, around 8k or so I think at the moment. It fluctuates. Pay off a good chunk every month.

pearsandapples123 · 01/05/2024 02:44

Around 40k (combined with DH) in credit cards mostly and one loan. Yes it keeps me up at night. Slowly moving it onto 0% but still have over 10k on high interest. We've moved abroad to be able to tackle it as it was growing every month and was unmanageable. Now we're chipping away but expensive maintenance to the house means it hasn't moved much. Plan is to move as much as we can onto 0% and throw what we can onto it every month (currently about 2.5k).

thisisasurvivor · 01/05/2024 12:02

Weeteeny · 30/04/2024 23:03

I have 3500 on a credit card plus £900 left on a loan for a new kitchen. I should have the kitchen paid off in August and the £3500 by September.
2.5 years ago I had £20k legal fees plus 10k credit card, plus the kitchen which was 9k..I truly thought I was going under.
I am not a frivolous spender this built up.scarily fast. One thing after another.D

Kitchen loan was first and at the timd.of arranging was entirely affordable.
Then a legal situation arose. I dont regret these costs i would go down this road again and pay twice as much to protect my DC.

Then a funeral to pay for. (Not related to legal scenario!)
Then car repairs,
Gas electric costs, cost of living . DS1 heading to university. etc

Life situations arise and its scary how things can spiral.

But I have chipped away and am proud of myself for everything I have done . I have worked bloody hard and stuck to my plans. I literally changed the way I live.

I try to shop as economically as possible. Leave my debit card at home so I am not tempted to do an extra shop etc
Cut out all the small unecessary costs that add up. I have not bought myself anything in a life time. It's worth it

I am beginning to have a little extra cash now and that tends to go to DSs. That gives me pleasure.
I am at the stage now i get a buzz every month paying off as much as possible and knowing I am nearly there. Can't wait till its gone!

I will have extra cash but my aim Then will be to still live frugally and put into savings and share with DSs . That would make me happy .

Why did the legal fees get so high ?

Sounds so hard

I had savings few years ago and 4k was wiped out on a barrister for family Court ( for one brief court case😳😮😮

NeedToBeStrongStepAway · 01/05/2024 12:07

£1100 on cards ( was 4k) but cut them up
£300 on a sofa plan.Once cards are clear by Oct latest then we'll pay sofa in 1 hit.

We had a lot of bad luck that meant we ran up debt as well as some stupid spending unnecessarily.

Had no cards in months. Budget better thankfully now. And try to save a bit too

Notaflippinclue · 01/05/2024 12:11

None and no mortgage - feel very lucky but in our defence worked our asses off for donkeys years

Overthebow · 01/05/2024 12:15

Mortgage and my student loan, so around £300k total. Doesn’t worry us at all as our mortgage is very manageable for us and we’ll pay it off in 5 years ish, and student loan just comes out of my pay check every month so don’t notice it. We don’t have any other debt.

CherryBlossom321 · 01/05/2024 12:18

About £18,500 across a loan and a credit card. A mix of very bad luck, and several years of extreme high stress and being time poor so therefore not on top of financial admin. We start our new zero based budget this Friday, using a separate account for food, fuel and other needs to keep a closer eye on things and hopefully start paying it down more rapidly.

Gemstonebeach · 01/05/2024 12:18

SootikinSweep · 30/04/2024 18:28

No car loan or mortgage either. Money in savings and pensions. I think Dh and I are really boring.

What a smug comment.

KeepSmiling89 · 01/05/2024 12:22

Currently £133.18 on my credit card. Only got it a couple of months ago to boost my credit score which worked!
£7.5k on car finance

Blanketpolicy · 01/05/2024 12:29

Mortgage is paid off so no "debt" there. But I wouldn't count a mortgage as true debt unless you are in negative equity, it is an investment.

Our real debit is about £14k in a 0% interest loan we used to buy a car. We could have paid the car as we usually save for one, but as the loan was available with 0% interest it made more sense to keep the money in savings and accrue interest, we will keep that money in savings for the next car in 5+ years time.