just been reading the bankrupcy post.
shocked that people build such debts up.

is their many people on here without any or with very little debt?

i have got no debt apart from a small matter called the mortgage. so no.

no debt here… also though.. no credit rating which can prove to be a bit of a sod sometimes.. like the other day when I tried to get a bank account with an overdraft facility.. or the time I tried to get a mobile phone contract..

None here, other than that mortgage thing. And my student loan (which is cheaper to ignore than pay off in full currently)

I have an inbuilt aversion to any large debt, to the extent that it makes me anxious…

So no credit card, small mortgage, bikes bought on interest free credit with the knowledge that I could buy them outright if needed.

no debts except a v small mortgage (c. 30% LTV) compared to our assets now.

I got debt free (excl. mortgage) aged 27ish and it was bliss. Student loans, a graduate loan, an overdraft and a small credit card debt were uncomfortable (mainly because I never missed a payment). I think at their worst about £14k, but par for the course for a 1997 graduate I guess.

I find the amount of debt some folk intentionally rack up frightening, I couldn’t sleep at night! I’m old tho’.

none here and a reasonable sum in savings.
that thread gave me the fear, thing is we all pay for their stupidity and need for instant gratification through consuming.

i did get interest free credit on my iphone (6 monthly payments of £70)
i manage to sleep at night 🙂

Had a good but of debt for years, cleared it all for a couple of years other than the mortgage but needed to take a loan out last year and some on a CC. It took along time to sort things out and was helped by a once off windfall. The debt I have I can live with but rather I hadn’t needed to take the loan out.

No debt whatsoever thankfully. Means I am not a burden on society in my unemployment. If I had borrowed like mad in better times, i could be getting my offset mortgage interest paid by you. What a mug I am for not doing that! I prefer to not have debt though, makes life simple.

without being rude…………i think the older people seem to save up for stuff they want rather that using credit.

me and the mrs have 3 years left on a mortgage and that is all.
i would not sleep if i have a load of debt hanging over me.

just a mortgage , small one at that 😀

Mortgage (offset) and have overpaid a chunk of it so have a bit spare on that.

CC’s – two totalling about £6K, but both are on 0% deals so cheaper than having that on the mortgage and paying interest on it. The amount spare on the mortgage exceeds the CC debt so I could pay that off any time, but at 0% why would I?

And then a couple of daily use CC’s, for the convenience / purchase protection aspect, they all get paid off end of the month.

Debt in itself isn’t bad. Unmanaged / unmanageable debt is a different matter.

small mortgage, that’s it. No loans or Card debt. Don’t have much in the way of savings tho.

Aaaahhhhhh….. Sanctimony.

surfer…………….sense

£38k mortgage
£1k on 0% credit card
so no big debts in the grand scale of things

Might have about £50 on the credit card at this moment, but no other debts, no mortgage, just a surplus of sanctimony 🙂

I used to have no debt and indeed no credit history, which made it nigh-on impossible to get a credit card/finance/loan/etc. as the sharks had nothing to base a credit score on.

Thankfully, I’m now up to my back teeth in it 🙂

Not for much longer, morgage is paid in two years and when I asked about another fixed rate deal they just laughed, don’t think they were desperate for my business.

Going to take my pension early at 52, pay the house off and go do a degree, just didn’t think of that sort of thing when I was a youngster, it was for the wealthy which we were definitely not

So will have a student loan, great if I ever get a part time job that pays enough to give some back, but if not its written off at 65 so not too worried about that debt

no mortgage, no loans but we have let the credit cards build up a little bit. We’re down to one card now, not a huge amount on that.

Debt in itself isn’t bad. Unmanaged / unmanageable debt is a different matter.

the world runs on debt so why shouldn’t we? I have a small amount of unsecured debt, about a month’s salary worth, but I don’t lose any sleep over it as it’s managable.

Ton … you’ve got kids I seem to recall … are any of them going on to tertiary education. If so that is kind of a debt ridalled business now and it conditions people into having significant debt – I left University after 4 years with a shade under 20K debt.
When you start “life” with that sort of debt it becomes quite normal to live with it for a while if you’rw not careful.
I was one of the first of the non grant University leavers so everything was borrowed and at the time perceptions fio the student loan system were a little hazy !

Just the mortgage now. Credit card automatically pays the balance each month. I was rubbish with money in my early twenties though.

In it up to my ears 🙁

Duc…….i do have kids mate.
one is 19 and works with me, other is 13 and still at school.

i was not having a go mate, just interested.

No debt, no mortgage, credit card paid in full by DD every month.
In terms of disposable income, as opposed to gross income, I reckon I’m better off than almost anyone I know.
Living in a shed, dressing like a tramp and having simpletastes does have some advantages. 😉

Student Loan.

CC paid of monthly. No overdraft. No loans. Not yet exposed to the joys of a Mortgage.

surfer…………….sense

No, see what theotherjonv did? He’s using debt (on 0% credit cards) to actually save money elsewhere. i.e. make money.

apart from a modest car loan, nothing.

You may be misquoting me Jon

credit card paid in full by DD every month.

That’s why I’m in the shit then – I’m paying your bills 🙂

is it a good thing that credit is now being refused and harder to get?

people seem to be saving money and not a quick to spend it.

deadlydarcy, credit cards are one of the highest interest rates around.
Barring loan sharks, it’s worth borrowing money just about anywhere to pay it off and start again, assuming you can stay on top of it in the future and not slip further back.

No debt except mortgage – hate using the credit card – is stupid to spend money you don’t have.

Three years ago I got declined for a contract mobile phone, despite having (at the time – since been all spent on a house!) a lot in savings, simply as I had no credit history – had only used a credit card a couple of times, only used my debit card. From their perspective I would have been better off with bad credit history than none at all.

Yes it is but for what its worth I think things like EMA don’t actually help

Did you hear the news reports when the cut in EMA was announced – a load of teenagers saying that it would ahve been impossible for them to get a part time job as well as go to colledge – come on.

Part of my problem was that money was too easy to come by so I didn’t appreciate the value of it. It was very easy at University in the first couple of years to get money via several overdrafts and the student loans company because it was virtually being thrown at me by them. It did eventually click that this wasn’t an entirely healthy position to be in but when your 18/19 and someone says yes we’ll give you a bank account and here’s an overdraft of 1200 notes as well you’d take it as that a set of Rock Shocks Judy DH’s to hang on the front of the bike. (in fact I only sold them a few motnhs back on ebay). WHen you have several people doing that then it becomes even more difficult to resist.
The same thing happened when I left Uni – the day I got confirmation of my first job I rang up the bank and the credit card company to inform them of my change in circumstances and my overdraft facility doubled and so did my credit limit (with different terms in the small print)

The sooner that stops the better in my opinion

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Kum8OUTuk[/video]

No debt here, not a sausage, save for everything and have money in the bank to boot, work very hard (not saying people with debt don’t,)never buy until i can afford.

lifes much easier when you never argue or worry about money,

18 years left on mortgage – current balance around £115,000
About half way through a £10k loan
£7k going nowhere on credit card

On the plus side, as long as work doesn’t dry up, I earn quite a lot of money, so it’s all manageable.

Failing that I’ll probably die before it’s all paid off.

Got my mortgage which I think is going down credit card but that’s got a grand that is going a little quicker and then that ‘interest free’ student loan

Not a penny owed 😀 it really is a nice feeling!