Debt

Debt - you guys have not got a clue. I have a serious amount of debt - currently $120,000 - all on credit cards. If I was to add the secured debt - maxing out around $700,000. Can i afford to repay it - not a hope in hell. How do you cope with debt. Depends on the Country you are in. In the UK I have come up with a debt repayment plan - will take 35 years. Anyone wanting to help look at my homepage and sign up with a ppc site to give me a few cents. Rant over...

I have very small debt. I have always had to live frugally so watch every penny. I worked two jobs for over eighteen years and got my house paid off so that is a very big plus and saves alot of money. I do however have a new car that I make payments on. I bought a small suv because I do craft sales and art festivals and needed something to haul all my stuff in so I really could write it off if I needed to. But besides that I usually save up for something I want before I buy it.

Aside from our mortgage we have 2 car loans. That alone puts me in debt up to my ears, but all needed and all worth it. After that we have about $1500.00 in credit card debt mostly to build our credit not because we don't have to cash to buy some thing. We pay extra on each of our 3 credit cards every month. On top of the minimum monthly payment: Card 1 gets an extra 25.00 a month Card 2 gets an extra 25.00 a month Card 3 gets an extra 50.00 a month Once card 3 is paid off card 2 will get 50.00 and so on. We have also requested that out limits NOT go up. As to not tempt us into spending more then we can handle. If we have a no interest period we pay things off before that time period is up. If you don't they will go back and charge you interest for the WHOLE thing. We also pay 100.00 extra on our mortgage every month and are a month ahead on it. Some times even more then that. We plan to have the house paid off in another 12 years. That would put us at 15 years instead of 30. We pay about 30.00 extra on 1 car loan and about 20.00 extra on car loan 2. Those just to even off the cost to a _50.00. Its easier to balance the check book that way lol. The key to paying some thing off is not to pay what is required but to pay more. Even as little as 5.00 extra dollars a month helps. If you only pay what is required on an interest loan of ANY type you won't pay it off for YEARS and YEARS. You basically throw money away. Good luck in your venture to be debt free by 2010!

my debt is not huge, $10 000, when i want to buy a house though then it will get a bigger but im trying to save as much money as i can. my partner has a farm debt but it constantly changes so im not really sure how much that is.

I am in debt it is less than 10,000.00 but I refuse to pay them because I had paid for insurance on all my credit cards and then when I got sick I was in thue hospital over a month so because my payments were late they wouldn't cover it.... well what are you supposed to do when you are dying in the hospital..informing your credit card companies is the last thing you are concerned with.lol

That's a good debt resolution. I can see that credit cards are always the culprit...never mind the house mortgage since it is really necessary...but credit cards? I have 2 credit cards but never use them...I made a firm resolve that I'd use them only for emergency cases, which never came yet. You just have to do some belt tightening to pay off those debts, which I understand is a burden to the family. I have a few monthly bills, but have not engaged in shopping spree using the plastic...I guess credit card companies are here to stay as long as there are people who are willing to be big spenders, using their cards.

I took out a small mortgage on my home to clad my house (it's siding in the US)and I have a small credit card debt. The debts are under control and I live frugally but comfortably...luckily there's only me to worry about. I don't consider my debts a waste of money because the things I purchased were things that were necessary or things I wanted.

I am not in debt, but my husband is fixing up the basement and he is still paying for our cruise. It is almost all done. We have already finished paying off our mortgage, and we own all our furniture. Now having the house paid for is the reason for us having little debt. He does owe me some money, because I had to use my credit card to get some bedding, so what I did, was pay that off and will get the balance from him. If one has a large purchase, trip, it takes a while to get out of it, but that is the only time. And when one has debt, there are things that one needs that one cannot get, not to mention the wants.

I'm in debt right now - but only for less than $100, may not seem like much to some but I don't like owing people. Of course I don't have a home of my own as much as I would love to have one and hope to again someday so would have that along with it.

We have gotten ourselves into a bit of trouble and have overspent over the last two years and now have debt to pay. Just only last week I was given the task by my husband to manage our finances and when I actually went through and put everything down on paper, I was surprised to see how much debt we do have. I am actually following Oprah's debt diet and have joined a budgeting free course online through ivillage.com. When my husband gets back on Friday, this weekend will be spent going through everything I have laid out and the changes that I think we need to make immediately, to get us back on track. Of course he will have input on everything but he is going to be surprised on the changes I am recommending. I have already started implementing a few with his approval too, and I think we can be cleared of this debt within 2-3 years, if I get a full-time job (currently a homemaker) and we stop spending and only buying what is necessary i.e the basics. He earns really good money that should be able to support the three of us easily but we don't know how to manage it properly and thats where we get ourselves into trouble. That's all about to change

I have the same siutation like you. I have credit card debt. We can afford it, but I always like to pay for this debt few days before the deadline

I'm in debt. I owe $1914 on my credit card (I just paid the other one off entirely.) and I owe about $2,000-$3,000 in medical bills. My husband owes $6,236.69 in credit cards. Right now, we're living off his income, and my paychecks are going towards our debt. It sucks, but it will get us out sooner rather than later.

Yes I am in debt, by the time it is all paid off it will be around $40,000 in debt. All minus $2,000 is from School Loans. $2,000 is from credit card debt because someone stole my credit card at college (guessing a roommate) and spent the money, when I realized it was gone was when I got the bill a month later and called and they said it was too late and I couldn't get the debt removed because they spent money places that I normally went. Had I known that in the end college debt would have cost me this much I probably wouldn't have gone - I don't have a degree to show for it because spring semester last year they raised tuition by $10,000 per year and I just couldn't afford it anymore. Currently our family income is around $15,000 a year, and we are forced to live with other family members because we can't afford the monthly payments of everything plus own a house. However, we are getting things paid off and while it seems grim at times, the debt is going down and by the end of the year we should have all of the small loans paid off. Our total debt should be paid within 5 years if we stick to it and are good with our money. But it is very frustrating and angering because had it not been for these darn loans , though it doesn't sound like a lot $15,000 a year would have been more than plenty for us.

i have 1050 $ debt and i don't know how i pay it :)

Yes, we are currently in debt. We have been in and out of debt our entire marriage. I'm not really sure if it's ever possible to be 100% debt free 100% of the time. At first we got into debt because of my terrible way of handling credit cards. Little purchases add up! I ended cutting up my cards. We got out of debt because my husband is excellent and budgeting money and he got extra work. Currently, we are in debt because we had to buy a new furnace and a new bed. The furnace is paying itself off in the sense that our heating bills have dropped. We are back to using credit cards. But it's different now because you can see online how much your balance is and what you're spending it on. I keep an eye on it before using the card. We put a limit on ourselves. Oh - and plus I keep the reciepts so I add that to the online balance. Because the balance is behind a day or two.