How much debt?

Having spent a good number of years living hand to mouth, I feel deeply grateful that, at 44 next week, I have no debt other than a mortgage of around 120k. Mrs SR and I feel that even such a mortgage is too much, though, and we have decided to pay it off entirely as quickly as we can – even if that means pinching a lot of pennies for awhile.

That said, a number of years back, we had so much debt, largely a result of student loans and other financing I had to draw on when I was doing post-graduate work, that I couldn’t see how we would ever recover other than by declaring personal bankruptcy. Fortunately, we never needed to, at least in part because of Mrs SR’s almost-supernatural accounting.

So how do people on here feel about their own situation? Are you debt-free or relatively so? Do you feel optimistic about your own financial present and future? [Not necessarily that you are – or will be – rich, but that you can, and will be able to, stay on top of your bills, as well as being able to buy things for yourself and family once in a while.]

I don’t really want to go into my own situation, but I was surprised the other day to find out that the average amount of savings people have is £450.
Considering how much I perceive people to be spending on holidays, mortgages, and just ‘stuff’ I reckon most must have personal debt that would keep me awake at night.

Low interest rates meant that we payed every penny we could into the mortgage.
Being self employed not having a mortgage is a huge relief. Not one penny owed to anyone.

I hate debt, i cant bear it.
I guess I was in debt for most of my 20’s.
Its a bit irrational really. I earn good money these days in my 40’s, only 30k of mortgage left that will be clear in 18 months with no other debt, the mortgage debt is a constant worry though, im almost counting down the days.

Nearly debt free, last count I owed £23k on the mortgage.
Don’t finance cars, I buy outright. 1 credit card with less than £1 owing.

I’m a tight shit, always have been. Cash has always ruled in my house, don’t have it? Ya can’t spend it (yeah, I have that CC but hey)

I think you’ve done very well OP, pulled in the reins when needed and as long as you are happy today, that’s all that matters.

5k given to us by the fi law 16 years ago set us up for life. Used as a deposit mid housing bubble. Don’t suppose it would even touch the sides of conveyancing and stamp duty costs now a days. No unsecured debt whatsoever and own over half our house. Should probably do something to move forward in the “housing market” but love the fact our mortgage is only 500 a month.

I owe about a grand (give or take a coupla hundred quid) to family and friends

that’s it

Should probably do something to move forward in the “housing market” but love the fact our mortgage is only 500 a month.

I don’t know about ‘moving forward’ in the housing market. I mean, to me a house is a home, and if you’re happy there, why move? Goodness knows (as does molgrips!) how tight a squeeze our place is, but I don’t think I would move even if I had four times the salary.

no debt here.

At one point I had 59k worth of personal unsecured debt.

I now have a couple of grand saved.

Mortgage that is fairly small compared to some. When we bought the house just over 5 years ago, we could have gone for something fancier & still been able to afford the mortgage but we didn’t want to have a mortgage of more than one of us could afford to pay.

Now we have a little girl so my Wife is at home and isn’t planning on going back to work for a few years I don’t think, as any money she would earn would probably only cover childcare costs – so that seems pretty pointless.

Being sole breadwinner has put a bit more pressure on me, but we are both fairly sensible with our spending and have a decent amount of savings if needed. The only worry would be redundancy from work.

Our only other debt is the remainder of a bank loan that my Wife took out to pay for her car.
We’ve got enough money to pay it off now, but you have to pay the full amount back anyway if paying it early so it makes more sense to keep that money available in a savings account, rather than pay the loan off early.

Nothing. I have nothing hence no debt. 😮

Most expensive item is me car which I paid in full.

Just the mortgage. It’s over £200k but under 50% LTV, 20 years left to run but overpaying brings our expected mortgage free date to be some time in 2031.

Considering a move to cheaper house to bring that down to be mortgage free in 5 years but not seriously considered it yet.

I was basically working to service our debt, credit cards, loan, mortgage it really did get me down, don’t get me wrong we weren’t up to our eyeballs in it but it was enough. I’m glad it’s all gone now, such a weight lifted off our shoulders. I’ll not buy anything I can’t afford to pay for in full up front again. I have only ever had 3 cars on finance that was a long time ago and never to be repeated, depreciation and interest on the loan is a double whammy I’m not interested in taking a hit on.

I’ve got a mortgage, and about 4k left on 0% credit card after buying a car last year, that will be paid off this year.

We can afford it all and don’t go without, get decent holidays, and have a few grand in savings.

So not the best i suppose but by far not the worst!!

having no debt takes a long time to get to.
married for 25 years, had a house 30 years, both in good jobs. both kids grown up. but I can remember going to do the weekly shop armed with a calculator, and having to stop buying once we had reach the allotted amount for the weekly shop.
never run a car either, which is a huge way to save cash, and always have enough money for a new bike when I have fancied one.

Mrs Inbred said back when we bought our house that if we are to have kids she wanted to be there for them when they were on Holiday, so we bought a smaller house and basically her salary dropped by half when we had kids. No regrets here. Five years left on the mortgage. Paying under 400 a month. The only Debt I have is a PCP loan on a car and my kids tennis coaching which is bloody expensive!

Just going through this now. At the bottom of a pretty big hill I seem to have somehow fallen down. There wasn’t even a good descent to enjoy either. Not sure how that happened. If you are in huge debt you should have at least had the pleasure of spending it all. Mine mostly comes from incompetence when it comes to filling in forms and paying bills.

Good on all those mortgage and debt free people on here. My finances were in a state about 8 years ago so I sat down and worked out what I owed to who and what I was “wasting” money on.

Binned the gym membership, contract phone, Sky TV plus paid off 2 loans that didn’t have much left to pay. Felt much better after it and started to save cash for a change. Made a daft purchase of an M3 2 years ago, didn’t keep it long as it needed some work and I just don’t care about cars enough these days. Managed to clear that recently.

We have just purchased a new house so the mortgage has gone up but we would have moved eventually so took advantage of the good deal. Other than that it’s just the car (which was 0% finance). If I want something I save up for it, bought a motorbike last year in cash and felt much better knowing it was bought and paid for so therefore an asset I can sell should I need to. I have a good amount of savings (very lucky I know), and it feels good knowing I’m not stressing about paying things.

I’m mid thirties, roughly 25k left on the mortgage. Similar to above, debt makes me itchy. My partner’s a decade older than me, renting with three young kids and not a pot to piss in. However, thanks to all of her post-grad quals and Professional life, she’s ample potential to sort herself out once the kids start growing up. Whereas I’ve no employability outside my dead end job. She could easily become me, but not vice versa. That’s me meaning that just Debt Free isn’t the be-all, ability to deal with changes of circumstances counts. I’d contentedly set out for a childless, bargain basement life so that I’d not need to care about the rat race much, and was well-enough off as a result. Now that I’ve wandered into a family the shift in what constitutes a liveable wage is terrifying.
(I’ve rambled off the point, sorry.)

I’m a bit of an oddity. Given both my wife and I work we have a nett income that is considerably above average albeit living in an expensive area of the SE. But we live quite frugally for a family with that income. We don’t have to scrimp and make do, we can afford stuff when we need it but it’s mostly need rather than want.

We have ca £120K of mortgage debt that has been overpaid against a house that is worth £300K+; virtually nothing on CC (even my last 0% deal has been ported enough times that it’s now virtually zero) and around £60K in savings and investments. The big one is that we both have surviving parents in big houses, and have therefore some significant inheritance income at some point in the future (yes, unless they all end up in homes, etc.). So everything I’ve scrimped and saved over will be largely irrelevant because at some point in the future I’ll become pretty well off even compared to now – certainly enough to clear the mortgage and some.

It means all my frugal living now is in essence pointless because overpaying further still and continuing to pay into investments – I’ll at some point be taking it all back out one way or another.

And yet I’m still exceedingly cautious about dipping into savings and ‘overspending’.

I suppose my ‘vice’ – not that i think it is a vice, when used properly as other posts on here in the past have revealed – is cheap / free credit. I’m going to have a new summer road bike in April / may. I could pay outright but I’m waiting for the right bike on a 0% deal, so i can spread its cost over a longer period.

£93k on a mortgage.
No other debts, no credit cards, no finance etc.
Not much in the way of savings, but we’ll manage.

Student loan is probably currently somewhere around £900 and that’s it. Its was a different situation a few years ago when for various reasons both me and MrsSalmon were earning but not salaried, so income was all over the place and it was very hard to get out of the overdraft and stay there. A few years of stability and predictable monthly income have made a big difference.

Go through stages, currently in a pay back stuff stage. As long as I have enough to pay off things, put a little aside and live each month I’m happy. Only worries are about work stability and wage growth, I’d like to be able to save more and build back my buffer fund a little as it’s taken a battering the last few years.

The last three employers have all been tight with wages, one big blue corporate IT company hardly ever gave pay rises, in the time I was with them my income went down in real terms. Took a wad of voluntary redundancy like most techies did.
Next small company was borderline crooked and although we did get one rise in 4 years most years it was stated by the boss that the government changed tax allowances so he didn’t have to give us more.
Not been in the current one long enough but it is looking pretty grim for annual pay reviews ever happening. Promotion is less likely as rather than train and develop internal staff it’s easier and cheaper to get a Visa for an Indian worker to transfer to the UK for six months.

If it wasn’t for the recent few years of tax allowance changes then I suspect I’d be having to cut a few expenses to cope with increasing costs.

Lucky enough to start the mortgage thing when house prices weren’t stupid so that’s pretty small and got a house that suits the two of us in a quiet area.

Generally use garage HP for cars, but cars don’t do anything for me so I’m usually buying a cheap commuter.

Overall, could be better but could be a lot worse.

I had tonnes of it (through depression and buying things to cheer me up) in my early 20s, probably £20k +.

I was debt free a few years ago for the first time since starting to work (except for the mortgage), but now I have a bike and car on HP. Will be paid off in 18 months, but regret it really.

I’m going to try and clear our 120k-ish mortgage in the next 10 years (could do it in 5, but would need to be skint to do it), as I’d like to be truly debt free by the time I’m 40. That said, it’s very easy to find things to spend money on, and 10 years is a long time!

Just £40k left on the mortgage, and that’s it, could be debt free in 4-5 years with some focus. But we need to upsize to a house in a nicer area / with space for kids / good schools.

This likely means I will be soon owing in the region of £300k 🙁

No debt here, but I don’t own anything big either (i.e. house or car).

Don’t do “personal” debt as such

But happily got a decent size mortgage …. A 2% loan might as well be free money … thank you vmuch.

I don’t really want to go into my own situation, but I was surprised the other day to find out that the average amount of savings people have is £450.

i couldn’t live like that now. been skint post graduation and scratching around for work but that was years ago. being self employed i feel twitchy if there’s not a years worth of mortgage payments in the bank and never get spendy on frivolities if its getting close to that.
no debt apart from mortgage, i don’t understand people who have a constant overdraft or CC debt. especially if they are salaried as you know exactly what is coming in and what you have to spend/save.

This thread really couldn’t be more STW if it tried could it..

I think I’m in the minority on here then, I have about £15k of debt other than the mortgage, I try to pay it off but life is expensive… I could scrimp and save, but then I can’t do trackdays, buy new motorbikes or go on holidays…

One day i’ll have money…. maybe 🙂

I should be more like weeksy, particularly as I have a big safety net under me at some point in the future.

But I’m not.

And i don’t know who’s right, him or me?

40 year old, married with two kids: No debt except a mortgage, but we were late onto the housing ladder and bought just before the crash 🙄 so that’s still pretty hefty (~200k left) despite us paying in extra. At least we are out of negative equity now though.

(Never really had debt – my folks were both worked in the bank so it was drummed in to me that all debt was a waste of money and should be avoided. I didn’t even have a credit card till the early 2000s when I started needing one for online ordering).

One mortgage, 130k – should be half this and 10years to go. 🙁
One car loan, 5k, two years to pay off.
Couple of quid this month on CC as the back room renovations are more grand than expected. Paid off by next month though.
We do go into o/d most months, ridiculously.

Matt. 41, too many children and a failed business behind me.

Mortgage free in 5 years. Largish house in a nice area, in the North though so not worth millions but could downsize when the kids leave.
More savings than mortgage and enough in ISA’s and pensions to mean I can get off the wheel at about 60 if I choose to (51 now)

And i don’t know who’s right, him or me?

Can’t take it with you.

My parents still live likes its “post war” Britain…. they will just not spend their money … I don’t want it ( I kinda do 🙂 ) just wish they would just go crazy and buy a convertible. Or in fact, eat out somewhere other than the Bernie Inn.

Point is … dont get too entrenched in not spending your doe … you don’t wanna end up like …

I have about £12k of unsecured debt, an enormous mortgage and a student loan….

Does this make me a bad person? Maybe. The vast majority of my debt was incurred during the 2 years my wife was off work with our newborn son, due to her being a PhD srtudent at the time, we were entitled to nothing (no help at all) so were down to one wage. Having just moved from Cumbria to Bristol and with my rent, fuel, food and petrol costing more than my newly graduate wage was bringing in, I had to make a call. Deplete my savings thereby scuppering my chances of buying a house or rack-up some cheap debt. A long time fan of the long game, a five year plan was hatched and incremental debt was incurred. In November 14, I bought my first house using the £70k of savings I had remaining from my time at uni. Now, with a mahoosive mortgage, SL, CC and childcare, almost 75% of my wages goes on bills….but, in 7 months we’ll be 4 years into that 5 year plan. Childcare will be finished (£12k per year) so at the end of year 5, I should, once again, be debt free. I don’t regret any of it. I don’t have an extravagant lifestyle, but am happy. What else matters?

Debt is a matter of circumstance and perspective.

M.

In my 40’s and i have an 80k mortgage. Cars are paid for and i have never owned a credit card. We also decided to buy a house that we could easily pay for if one of us lost our job. That was the best decision ever as we had one child at the time and then we ended up with twins! I have now given up work as £2500 for nursery fees a month was way beyond our means. My issue is i have no qualifications to back up my profession and i also have no pension as all my wage went on to getting on to the property ladder. I dont worry about mortgage/ debt but i do worry about finances for the future.

My Parents in law are similar. They spend their money on redecorating, replacing items that don’t need to be replaced and buying the grand children gifts etc. I suggested once that instead of doing this why not put a small amount in a childs ISA for instance…. They looked at me like I had handed them a turd!

I’m almost the opposite of theotherjonv – As an only child with the family home being a desirable house in a nice sussex village I spent like crazy ‘knowing’ I’d have a big inheritance which would clear any debt I had. At one point our unsecured debt was more than our joint combined gross income. The last few years have bought the realisation that in all likelyhood the equity in mums house will pay for her care so we are slowly but surely paying it all off.
Hopefully will be free of credit cards/loans in about 3 years, then another 12 till the mortgage is gone.

Paid off mortgage in my late 30s, wouldn’t mind moving house but stamp duty says no.

I did well out of buying in London in the late 90s, such a shame that luck(?) on the housing market has so much impact on our wealth.

Could struggle for decent income in coming years as Indians taking over my niche area of IT, could retire as wife works but not sure I can rely on her as she never seems happy with her jobs and changes them too often.