How many of you have racked up huge debts?

[Twiglett]

OK, up front I appreciate that this could be taken as an arsey thread but its not meant to be.

I was brought up not to borrow money and our only debt is our mortgage because quite honestly we were scared to incur other debts and went without instead

I find it difficult to truly understand whether this whole 'looming debt crisis' is for real or a media-invention

Do people re-mortgage every time their house value goes up, have you racked up loads on credit cards and taken personal loans every time they're offered .. if so why?

me

because ex partner fucked off and left me to pay our joint mortgage by myself.. as a singlemum working p/t on tax credits.

Then the tax credit people messed up (never paid me for 6 months) and I ended up using a credit card to help pay for things like food, utility bills and clothes.

Now I am with someone else and slowly starting to get myself sorted.

I really hate the asumption that all debt is caused by 'pisspoor money management'

It isn't

I never got maintenance from exp for a year either

Well I may well fit the DM stereotype, but at least I'm trying to get out of it now.
Theres lots of stuff attached to how I've got in this position but I guess that wasn't the purpose of the thread? I think Twig wanted to know if there really is a debt crisis and I think the answer is yes.

Its not one of those black/white things that everyone thinks it is.

Oh Sheepgomeep I am sorry. What I meant to say is that I have not explanation for my debts other than piss-poor money management.

Sorry Annie, wasn't having a go. I was agreeing with you really.

Yep, bound to wiff of smugness, even tho prob not intention.

Some will be in debt due to bad luck and misfortune and some, like us, due to recklessness. Regardless, its a terrible feeling and puts tremendous strain on things.

I was reading in Grazia(?) women who said that it was all down to today's society, and they shouldn't have to wait and save up for things, oh and the classic line of "It isn't debt if you can make the repayments"

We are in debt - overdrafts which got extended for a house move and never got paid off again, and a loan that covered our car about 5 years ago, DH's credit card bill from Uni, and the month of the wedding that just went out of control

We rent, so no mortgage debt.

We have more debt than I would like, but much less than many.

We don't go out and buy things on credit cards (we have done in the past, I think that got absorbed by the loan), we don't buy new anything much very often - if we do it is from birthday/christmas money from family. We have the odd lapse and buy takeaway/coffee occasionally (and feel very guilty )

Sooooooooooo, I don't know if it is real or media invention.

OUrs was caused in aprt by piss poor money maangement- but also by a huge crisis that nobody could have rpedicted. Who would think my healthy 30-ish dh would get ill and lsoe his job, that wwe would have to pursue his employer for the balance of his wages (several hundred pounds- we won but took 5 months)? That it would happen just as I was going on mat leave from my fairly well paid job? i think its the things you don't exp[ect that make such a difference.

I can't see dh ever getting in debt again, including a mortgage but thats not all good either- Muma nd dad could ahve bought their lovely council house at one point for £15k, Mum doesn't trust debt so said now, its now worth over £100k and as their pension collapsed, they face a life on housing benefit; had they been able to cash it in for a nice flat they'd have ahd something to fall back on

I have a cc with a balance of about 400 ish but they did try to give me a limit of 7500 which is almost my annual salary and they didnt want to lower it.

My mortgage is 7.8 times by salary but i had to do this to keep my house.

Well my (soon to be) ex-h ran up debts before he walked out on us and left me to deal with them.

I am like you Twiglett, I don't believe you should borrow unless absolutely necessary (i.e. mortgage.) However unfortunately for me I married someone who wasn't so prudent and who was a damn good liar and managed to make a complete fool of me and everything I believe in.

Sorry if I am sounding a little bitter but he ruined my perfect credit rating. Still, at least now I know of it I can deal with it all which I am, will take me 6 years to get my good credit name back though.

we only have the car to pay for monthly and the usual bills.we dont have any overdraft facilities or anything else on hp,not everything in our home is brand new. but it belongs to us without getting into debt.dps sister and her husband are thousands in debt to the extent they are defaulting their bank loans, and have door to door loans, which just one of them loans is £160 a fortnight, they have carpets,fridges and beds on finance and have 4 kids,the youngest little girl had her birthday a few weeks ago, and only had the present i bought her to open , i never want my children to go without because of greed

ShinyHappySchmooo I don't think anyone could dissaprove of my debts, (well they might - this is mumsnet after all - but it wouldn't bother me) ours were run up while I was working part time and earning a quater of what I do know. There is no real problem in paying them off, I would of course prefer it if they were not there.

we've racked up loads of debt due to trying to start a furniture business.......in a year that 3 national furniture stores went bust .

Mortgage is about £140k now but that is going to increase next year as we are going to get a bigger place - but we are only 25 and 30 so we at the start of our life-sentence of paying the mortgage back.

Car loan is 8k but selling the car as will just use DP's company car so I am hoping to pay that off.

We have 1k credit cards each but pay those off each month.

Don't think we are in bad shape really. We can afford to pay it back and the credit cards are 0% interest. I think as long as you are sensible then you will be reet!

Hurlyburly I could give you a list of more detailed reasons,

• being left with ex husbands debts to pay off
• not being able to work due to crippling depression
• surviving for two years with a new mortgage when my ex decides to stop paying maintenence
• having to pay money out every week to act as carers to my inlaws ( petrol, food , medical fees, as well as odds and ends around the house)
• making myself worse off by leaving benefits and going to work and some piss poor money management.

god yes did I forget to mention the tax credits - but I hold myself responsible at the end of the day - I failed to live within my means.

Everyone has better reasons than me. Harumph

Up until very recently I had almost £20k of debts (not counting our mortgate)
Why did I have them? Was I feckless? Stupid enough to jump on every one of the (many) loan offers that dropped through our letterbox.
I would say not.
Our money problems started 16 years ago, when I fell pregnant (unexpectedly) after dh had left the forces (because I wanted us to have some kind of a family life). Because the job he had done there had no equivalent in civvy street, he had the choice of getting unskilled work (and there was precious little of that about where we lived) or going to college to retrain. He decided to do the latter.
Unfortunately life with two young kids, a morgtgage, childcare expenses etc, etc is very difficult on one (civil service admin level) wage and so we struggled. Trying our best to get by but having to take loans out to pay for basics. Trying to get some kind of help from the government, but only to find that we weren't quite 'poor' enough for that.
After three years, dh left college with an HNC only to find that every job he went for wanted someone with 'experience'- the usual catch 22.
In the last 16 years, it's been like three steps forward, two steps back. Things getting gradually better, but never enough for us to get solvent. Paying off one debt only to have to take out another for essentials like the washing machine breaking down or school shoes for the kids.
Also not helped by things like when the Tax Credits people 'overpay' you and then claw it all back the next year
I'm not wanting sympathy (don' need it, thanks) and things are (fingers crossed) better now, but I just wanted to say that not everyone who goes into debt does it to fund an extravagant lifestyle (people who do that piss me off). Some of us, hate being in debt, but have to going into it just to pay for the basics of life.

I don't think I have better reasons, I should have accepted that at stages of my life I was skint and lived accordingly. I didn't hence the debt.