How much do you owe?

za3bour

Man if you're not married and have to kids then you don't know the *REAL* thing. It's just so different than being a single. I used to save 75% of my income when I was a single and man I was living really well.

Now I'd be happy if I save 25%(which I'm not) and I'm NOT living as good as I used to live although my income now is 300% what I've used to get.

It's not just the bills that goes up when you are married, the whole thing just get out of control no matter how smart/organized you are.

varelg

Debt free. And intend to keep it that way.

Hypntick

za3bour wrote: »

Man if you're not married and have to kids then you don't know the *REAL* thing. It's just so different than being a single. I used to save 75% of my income when I was a single and man I was living really well.

Now I'd be happy if I save 25%(which I'm not) and I'm NOT living as good as I used to live although my income now is 300% what I've used to get.

It's not just the bills that goes up when you are married, the whole thing just get out of control no matter how smart/organized you are.

I'm married. Bills actually went down as my chunk of them was cut in half. Then again we share a joint account and she trusts me to handle the finances. Any serious purchases are run by me first.

Now as far as the kid thing goes, you guys can keep those. Neither of us care for children and have absolutely no plans of having any. Heck if we could find a doc willing to do a vasectomy on a guy my age i'd jump at the chance.

Ryan82

Never owed a dime to anyone. I'm married with dual income but no kids and we rent so I understand that my setup is probably better than a lot of folks who may be paying a mortgage and have young ones to care for.

However, we also live pretty frugally. We don't eat out very often, and she doesn't require the latest Dolce and Gabbana or Prada crap.

Essendon

300K in mortgage, a car loan of about $10,000 and credit cards debt of about $6000. I used to pay $1200 for down-the-drain-rent-money, with my own house atleast there's something that's worth paying for. Of course, I share it with the missus but she's been in and out of jobs, more out than in, for the past 2 years which has made quite a dent in the savings. Thank God I have no children just yet, otherwise I'd be eating peanuts for dinner.

za3bour

Hypntick wrote: »

I'm married. Bills actually went down as my chunk of them was cut in half. Then again we share a joint account and she trusts me to handle the finances. Any serious purchases are run by me first.

Now as far as the kid thing goes, you guys can keep those. Neither of us care for children and have absolutely no plans of having any. Heck if we could find a doc willing to do a vasectomy on a guy my age i'd jump at the chance.

Well my wife used to work but she only contributed to like 20% of the bills(and saved the rest). Now she's not but I got a much better job so things are actually better and we're saving more.

Too bad you don't want kids, they are the joy in our life.

Da-Regulator

Me and my wife have like 13k but we plan to pay it all of with all our tax money and some savings

eMeS

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

they probably should have been renting instead of buying, especially if they didn't put down at least 20% on the house to avoid PMI.

Just to be clear, you don't have to pay any specific percentage down to avoid PMI. You simply have to pick a loan that doesn't require PMI. There are many loan products out there.

Really really dumb to insure someone else's risk, regardless of how much you pay down.

MS

mark_s0

Mortgage, small personal loan and credit cards, generally not expensive girlfriend, no kids. With the salary i'm on, saving isn't easy. This year i'm looking to change that, study my a$$ off, get a better paid job with new skills and pay off my debt's.
As a teenager (I'm 24), I was rubbish with finances which is why I have no savings and some personal loan and credit card debt. But in the last few years, I've learned a lot about keeping my finances sensible. I use my debit card for everything, if I can't afford something, I'll go without rather than using my credit card. I know for some (especially those with kids) that isn't always an option.
For my credit cards, a few years ago, I balanced transferred my balance to a new credit card with 0% interest for 15months, then at the end of those 15months, whatever's left is transferred to a new card with 0% interest for a certain period and the previous card account closed. I've done that for 2/3 years now. In that time, I've paid an initial transfer fee of 1% but no further interest, my debt going down and it keeps my credit rating decent. It might not be the best way to do it, but it works for me at the moment.

N2IT

I rent but I have a 500 a month car payment student loans which are down to 7,000 and a credit card around 3,000.


Oh and two kids

I can't wait till the misses get's out of nursing school. Come on August!

tbgree00

I owe a little under 10k in student loans, my wife owes around 15k. We actually have some equity in our house and before my new job we were living within our means. When I lost my old job we went into emergency mode, slashing our total bills by about 200 a month and don't plan to go back now despite the fact that I have doubled my old wages. We have the cash on hand to pay all of our student loans off and still have savings. My interest rate is at 2.5 and hers is 3.5 so we don't see a big point in doing that right now. We own our cars and have no credit card debt. I guess we're pretty lucky.

gunbunnysoulja

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

cant answer this poll, no option for completely debt free

+1. No credit cards, no loans, no debt. Pay for everything in cash. Own my own car. With that said, I am still saving up for a house, which will be paid for in cash, so for the time being I rent.

I budget everything. I don't go out to eat often. I bring my lunch to work. If I don't need it, I don't want it. Ofcourse, I splurge here and there, but I don't see the need to drop $5 a day at dunkin donuts for coffee. It's about making smart choices. Luckily I have a fiance in the same situation and mindset as me so we can be financially smart as a team.

veritas_libertas

Just the house. Paid off all the wife's medical bills last year.

Feels nice!

Turgon

gunbunnysoulja wrote: »

+1. No credit cards, no loans, no debt. Pay for everything in cash. Own my own car. With that said, I am still saving up for a house, which will be paid for in cash.

Did you go to college? I think you are in an enviable position and many people on TE will die not being in that place. With no debt and the option to buy a home outright you can sweep the streets and live very well indeed.

KoolTrix

I'm closed to the 20grand mark.

I'm in debt up to my eyeballs...

gunbunnysoulja

Turgon wrote: »

Did you go to college? I think you are in an enviable position and many people on TE will die not being in that place. With no debt and the option to buy a home outright you can sweep the streets and live very well indeed.

I am in college now with a little over a year to go. Fortunately I served in the Army so I have the GI Bill to pick up the tab.

In regards to the house, I will be moving to Florida to live closer to my fiance's family and the houses there are significantly cheaper than up here in New England. It's certainly a buyers market. I don't care about being rich, but I know too many people that stress over finances, and I wanted to try to avoid that as much as possible.

Psoasman

I have a mortgage, my house value has stayed fairly steady.
Small car payment we budgeted for.
We pay off what we charge each month.
Use tons of coupons. There is a great site called the coupon project, which has great daily deals.
We have a single income, so we are frugal with what we spend, eat out.

Turgon

gunbunnysoulja wrote: »

I am in college now with a little over a year to go. Fortunately I served in the Army so I have the GI Bill to pick up the tab.

In regards to the house, I will be moving to Florida to live closer to my fiance's family and the houses there are significantly cheaper than up here in New England. It's certainly a buyers market. I don't care about being rich, but I know too many people that stress over finances, and I wanted to try to avoid that as much as possible.

You played it well. Good luck to you.

mickeycoronado

I received my first student loan statement in the mail the other day actually. I've accrued my first $5.03 of interest, yay. No other debts yet, rebuilt my credit over the last 8 years...don't want to have to do it again.

rsutton

Made the mistake of buying nice cars when I first was married + a few shiny toys. A few years in to marriage I wisened up but it takes many years to pay for those early mistakes. My goal for next year is to be completely debt free.

za3bour

One of the few benifits of living in Syria is that going to University/College is almost free (you only pay for the books and like 30$ a semester) so I don't have any debt for college. Anotehr nice thing is that Credit Card is fairly new and people just are not used to it so I havn't owned one and will never have I just like to pay from what I have.

Currently we're renting house/car with a plan to raise money in order to buy a house in the near future. I just have a small debt (under 1000$) to one of my friends which I'm currently trying to pay (hopefully next month).

I'm living in Saudi Arabia now, we're enjoying a better life here we're dining out more and buying stuff more but it's cheaper actually than Syria.

GamingCrazy

I pay for my Car, Insurance, Student Fees, and Books,

and I'm not in debt! Yay!

But thanks to H.O.P.E Scholarship tuition is covered 100%.

joshmadakor

mikej412 wrote: »

That was my first thought -- but then I realized that I've probably already accrued more than a few dollars worth of electricity usage so far this month.

This

Paul Boz

I have no debt beyond my mortgage. I have paid off all student loans, have never been deep into credit card debt, and own both of my vehicles.

MAC_Addy

I'm debt free, but I came to find out that my SSN had been stolen and someone took out over $10,000 in credit cards online.

I have contacted all the companies via letter and trying to call, but they will never return my letters.

All the places that offer credit cards online, example, best buy, they had gone to... all the places where you don't have to give them a personal signature. I've told all the companies to provide me with information on what was purchased and when it was purchased.

I'm not from America and I returned to the motherland (England) for over a year, I know for a fact that I didnt take out any credit cards or purchase anything.

Talk about people trying to avoid identity theft... all these companies don't give a f*&$ whether if you claim this to be theft, they just want their money.

Apparently there's nothing I can do about it...?

neocybe

I'm right around 30k, 15 student loans and 15 CC. I got on the Dave Ramsey band wagon and hope to zero out next spring provided Im gainfully employed and my paid-for car lasts till then.

pizzaboy

Debt free but will be getting a mortgage by year end

michaelcox

just mortgages on 2 rental houses. No other debt.

erpadmin

Owe about

$224k in a mortgage
$10k autoloan (paid by the end of the year if all goes well)
$3300 in a Prosper loan
7k in CC debt (which will be paid off by the spring)
Also leveraging currently $3700 in student loans...to be paid off shortly.

Except the mortage, all that debt will be gone within a year or so....I plan on piling on more student loan debt though, but it's cool because if I stay working for the government for 10 plus years after my last loan, the balance after my 120th payment is forgiven thanks to Public Service loan forgiveness.

eMeS

erpadmin wrote: »

$3300 in a Prosper loan

I love Prosper....I keep an address in NH just so I can loan people money.

MS