How much debt are you actually in?

[Be More Pacific]

Wow...His parents are very generous and understanding...

I guess it helps when you're loaded and have three mortgage free houses....

 

[Sallydally]

I am a sahm and hubby has his own company, We have a mortgage of about £250k left to pay.
£250 on a credit card.
I am insistent that if we need or want anything we save first.

 

[Rose91]

Just under 9k for my work van. My mum pays £100 towards it a month as her and my dad also use it when I haven’t got any dogs.

£1,500 on a credit card. I do need to make more effort to pay it off but first year being self-employed took priority. Luckily am going into the new year with more clients so fingers crossed I can pay it off sooner.

After my grandad died we found out my auntie, who lived with him and claims PIP due to several medical conditions, owes over £12k to various shopping accounts/loans etc. My mum and other auntie have had to take over her finances and now have to monitor everything that she buys.

 

[37BBL]

I find this weirdly comforting, that I'm not the only one with a credit card. I have found a 0% to balance transfer to, and I am going to try and chuck £300 per month at it. After paying my share of bills and other bits, I should easily have enough to do that and plenty of spends left over. It just proves I waste alot of money on shit

 

[LaurieLaurie]

Around £300 lol

 

[Fairypop]

I have a student loan but not paying it back currently and it doesn’t affect my credit rating so (as bad as it sounds), I ignore that for the time being. I have around £1300 debt from my student overdraft, regret ever using it but it’s taught me a valuable lesson . I don’t have any other debt so I can’t wait to pay the stupid thing off!

 

[midnightrose]

£21k student loan left.
£10k bank loan
£1k credit card / Very
£500 overdraft
+ mortgage

I am on my way to clearing it all

 

[DishtheDirt]

No personal debt...except for a mortgage of £430,000 on a house worth £800,000 plus
We are over paying our mortgage monthly and hope to clear it in 9 years unless we move again!

 

[Leftpeg9]

I don’t count our mortgage or car finance in this.

800 Next
800 Argos
1200 Paypal
2800 credit card

No overdraft anymore as that was paid off a few years ago (until eldest was born in 2010 it was forever maxed out at 1700), a small 2000 loan through Salary Finance which has literally taken its last payment and is closed as of tomorrow.

Hubby is 1 year into a 10k loan which was used for home improvement and a small amount of debt we incurred whilst he retrained and completed a modern apprenticeship.

 

[Gem_woody]

Age 26:
£58,000 in student debt, as the year I started my degree the government increased tuition fees from £3K a year to £9K. I did 4 years of BA degree a placement year then on top of that applied for maintenance loans each year to pay my rent.
I very much doubt I’ll pay the whole thing back.

Don't worry about paying it back, it gets written off after a certain amount of time and student debt isn't treated like other debts. Never overpay, it's throwing money down the drain.




Unrelated but-
I get overwhelmed when I think about our mortgage. We have a 35yr 135k mortgage on a 50% shared ownership house which cost 315k (3 bed so we never need to move). Seeing so many people on here managing to be mortgage free and it seems so out of reach for us with our less than average wages. I'm making small overpayments every month but it seems like it wouldnt help much when I see how much interest adds up. Who knows how much our monthly payments will be when we purchase the rest of the house, although at least we won't be paying £500 a month rent aswell.

 

[DuckDuck]

178k mortgage ( joint )
£1k left on my car which should be done in 3 months ( joint )
13k loan on new windows and doors , we really needed them they were very old and if it rained we’d have a puddle in my hallway ( joint )
£45 credit card ( mine which I took an extra job to pay for and to pay for all the nights out and gin and there’s not really the money for my socialising , I get through my socialising monthly budget in one night, we have a set amount for frivolity and I spend far more so I picked up a very small cleaning job that pays well enough to pay for this ). For instance I took myself off to Brighton yesterday and had the Wetherspoons was open id have been in there , the monthly budget would have spent in one day , then I came Home and paid for us all to have Chinese . My husband is frugal so I can’t just spend spend spend on the family budget , although I do Chuck the odd bottle of wine in the shopping basket
£94 on very ( mine )
We aren’t struggling , we go in the bank every few months and try to Chuck some money at the loan to get it down. But we are not rich or have money as such
I work part time as I hate my job and manager and for my mental health I can’t be there longer than I need to be . Husband has had a job within the local government and has done since he was 20 years old so he’s on decent ish money

 

[Doc]

5,900 on credit card
80,000 on mortgage (house about 250k)
10,000 loan

a lot of that is from trying to keep afloat after divorce and buying out my ex husband, and being made redundant a few years ago, I just keep chipping away as best I can.

 

[Bellaboo83]

Write to the council, ask them if they can take the debt back, tell them you are traumatised by the debt collection agency and that you didn't mean to miss the payments and they are not being dealing with you in a fair way, if you are vulnerable in any way (young kids / single parent / mental Ill health / illness) include that on your letter, offer them a payment to get started and hope they take it back in house. It worked for me years ago.

 

[TommyTBFC]

thank you! I’ll do that in the next few weeks - we are looking to relocate from London to the North West Area so I may call in both areas. Our deposit is there and ready to go so it’s all dependant on what the lenders will give us, Ive done the calcs and the mortgage repayment that we are looking as well as my DMP are easily affordable within my salary alongside a standard of living.
Wish me luck!

late to this so apologies if I have got the wrong end of the stick but if you are on a DMP or thinking of entering a DMP with funds for a deposit on a property ready to go, why are you not paying off your debt with the deposit money? Before taking on more debt? If you are entering a DMP I’d say goodbye to any chances of a mortgage (even if you’d easily afford it) my DMP Killed me for years. Couldn’t get an Argos card let alone anything else

 

[Chocolate Caramel Brownie]

I’m a single mum and on maternity recently broken up with my boyfriend, so stressed about putting my baby in nursery I don’t really have any family to look after him whilst I go back to work. Going to try and look for another job closer to me. Does anyone know how much you’ll get from UC as a single parent when my maternity ends

• #177

im in a very similar situation, I have a 4 month old. Do you have a local sure start children’s centre? Mine offer free citizen advice appointments where someone can help you with these questions. I get help towards my child care to be able to go back to work as I earn too much to get other benefits. But you may be able to get help that you don’t know about. Worth a try and every bit helps as it’s so hard to cover everything isn’t it x

 

[caterday28]

Is it the case if you don’t pay back all you students loans after a certain number years they are wiped, or is this a miff

Yeah, I think for me it's 25/30 years after the first date I've been due to repay it (i.e. after the first time I've earned enough to be over the threshold for repayments).

 

[realhousewivewannabe]

2k on a CC (it’s on 0%) and I’m hoping to pay it back by October.

Honestly forget about student loan. Luckily I didn’t pay the 9k fees crikey so much but I don’t think I’ll ever manage to repay it off! It’s about 8k now (I think)

 

[erin182]

I owe 6k on my car but I don’t see that as a debt as such. It’s a 4 year pcp agreement and I could just give it back in a year and be done with it. I won’t tho, I’ll swap it for another car I owe £100 on a student credit card I’ve had for about 10 years and pay £5 a month off it. Everything else is short term debt... like I have a next card and I will spend one month but pay the full balance off the next month.

 

[Zenchick101]

Best decision I ever made was never getting an overdraft at uni.
My friends are still paying their overdrafts off 2 years later. The temptation was there at the time but I'm glad I held out!

I didn't opt for one because of the fee and always keep a buffer so I don't go under 0. did once and was charged 30 euros and I was only a couple of euros under for a couple of hours

 

[Pinkrose]

Whilst it doesn't necessarily go 'against' you, debt will always impact on your affordability when applying for a mortgage. Some lenders, even if you have credit cards with zero balances, will take the credit limits into account in their affordability calculations - the reasoning being they could approve the mortgage then you could go and run up those credit limits the next day.

You (and/or your partner) must earn a serious amount of money to getting a mortgage of £360,000 in the first place.

Hmmm maybe,