Personal debt, not including the mortgage. How much is yours?

[nkf]

Like many people in the UK, I'm working out how to get through the recession. I currently have one loan (taken to pay for a training course). £2,500. It feels bad enough. Have cleared credit card and am working out how not to go overdrawn this and every month.

How about you lot?

nope Xenia cos we all know you earn a packet to pay it with (long time no see btw- hello!)

we were stung hugely when dh got ill years back, had to sell the house to clear it all. Never again oh no. We'd be better off n benefits now than both working then, due to the debt we had.

I don't understand the "store card" debt thing? What do people have a store card for? I've been offered one occasionally, but I just automatically say no. How do they work?

same as a cc but with more interest

i have student debt aswell but i ignore it

£221.something.

Store cards are only any good if you get a discount on goods for having it and if you pay it back within the account time or you get clobbered with huge amounts of interest which will negate the discount gained. The store will pay a company to administer the card which works like a credit card but it's only able to be use that store or sometimes within the store group unlike a credit card which you can use anywhere.

Simplysally - thanks for that. Don't think I'll bother though. Sounds a rip off. Also sounds too easy to forget to pay it off on time.

We don't have any debts and we don't have a mortgage.

Quattro - I should add that DP came home last week with the news that his contract is being terminated. So I enjoyed saying no debt no mortgage whilst I could.

stupid thing is, if we had stayed in our first bought home and stayed there forever, then i am pretty sure we would have no mortgage and only a small amount of debt. Instead we thought it would be a great idea to up sticks from our cosy little midlands town and move to the south east (which I love btw)

Swedes. Will your DH be able to find a job in the same field? Or does he want to take the opportunity to change direction?

On the upside, you are richer than Xenia ...

No debts & paid off the mortgage. Glad of it as dh is being made redundant (again!!)..........

Credit card/loan debts of £40K but a plan to pay them off. We pay off about a £1K a month and get quartely bonus of about £5k which is going towards paying off CC. I am aiming for paying it off in two years!

Large mortgage as well.

I have just gone back to work, so as long as neither of us is made redundant then we will be ok.

Yep we are crap/ DH particularly crap with money - but strangely enough I feel better about it now as DH has finally realised that we need to do something about it.

I think once you get to the point you know you MUST do something about it, it can be a hugh turning point. Burying head in the sane is the worst thing to do re debt.

For the majority of people, once they're out, they stay out - my sister, having had her debts deducted from her pay (so she didn't even get it and it went straight to her creditors iyswim) has sorted herself out, and she refuses to have a cc. She used to keep only an electron card too as you couldn't use it online.

30k which i borrowed at the start of the year

Nothing, got in to a bit of bother years ago with store cards and it scared me enough to vow to never borrow other than mortgage (currently at £125k)

Dh has one last payment on his loan left yay!!!! oh, but he's still got £10k on credit cards to pay off. oops! I'll get him round to my way of thinking in the end!

I'm 30 and I think that I got caught in a culture of living fast and free and not really thinking about paying it back. Credit was REALLY easy to get, and there always seemed to be something I thought I needed.

I hope my DD and any other children we have might learn from our mistakes, and that credit isn't so freely available.

The good news is we should be debt free in 2.5 years and I'll only be 32 so more childbearing debt free years left! It is annoying though as if it wasn't for the debts we would probably have a second child sooner.

We have no mortgage or other debt. Use credit cards to get store points but pay them off every month.

I had to sit there 5 years ago thinking is all we have worked for financially worth i a sense destroying to be rid of the abuser. The £1m cost of the divorce and the £1m debt. What price happiness? But when you know it will cost you £1m you pause and think and plenty of usually men won't divorce because it's not quite so bad in the marriage that they'd risk that type of financial loss. £1m to be rid. I know in theory it's relative and the same if you earn a lot less but when the numbers are bigger it can feel harder.

Xenia - I would have thought it was easier to go 50/50 on £2M worth of marital assets than it would be to go 50/50 on £200,000. You are not thinking clearly if you seriously think the former is harder.

And surely the £1M cost of the divorce is the same debt million. You are in debt to the tune of £1M presumably because you divided your marital assets without cutting your coat to suit your cloth. You should try and get over the money side of things. Try going a month without mentioning your divorce.

I don't remember the last time I didn't have debt!
When I say that I mean as in to live on. I have an overdraft, what I spend is available ovrdraft, never actual money.

How long does a debt of 1m take to pay off? Is there interest on that too?

It sounds enormous, but my debt (18k)is now actually the same as my take home pay each year. Even if you make 1m a year then it probably is just as depressing!

nothing.
Mortgage is 1.1 million, though