how many people are currently in debt

[tark]

I am in debt..car, house, kid's school...

[grandmaruth]

For the first time of my life, I am not in debt. I worked for myself and love it. Nobody cares about you as much as you do, remember that before working for someone

[grandmaruth]

I am sorry to hear that! I hope all is well! God bless you!

[grandmaruth]

It is a good idea to pay credit cards instead of cash, only if you can treat it like cash (so you get cash back). For me its difficult to stop spending so the 1-5% isnt worth it

[Pitman]

Just CC Debt & a Student Loan. At the end of the year I'm aiming to pay off the CC, and cut my student loan in half, which will leave it at around 2K, then paying off that bad boy in March/April of 09. I also plan on purchasing a new vehicle around Feb/March, but I plan on buying that outright.

[mrpaseo]

$65,000 on house
$26,718.86 on credit cards (0% interest, money sitting in ING)
$25,189.47 on SUV (5.4% Will be paid off in February).

$116,908.33

As of 28 FEB 09 we will be down to: $64,000 then we will wack 1,000 off the mortgage per month until PIF.

Ray

[paladin]

Just our mortgage.

[mom-from-missouri]

Mortgage and car.

[SnoopyCool]

Mortgage, Car, Student Loan

[tripods68]

As for the OP's question, I am in debt, but in a very controlled way.

Exactly how do you control your debt? Do you live below your means...or you have plenty of cash to payoff all your debt if you want to?

[Caoineag]

As of February it will be mortgage and student loans. Until then, its student loans and low interest credit card debt.

[kork13]

Exactly how do you control your debt? Do you live below your means...or you have plenty of cash to payoff all your debt if you want to?

It's "controlled" in a few ways.... Most importantly, I have a stable job with a stable paycheck, I do live well below my means, and I am able to make all my debt payments exclusively from my monthly income. My monthly expenses (not including debt payments) are less than $1400. My debt payments are about $750/mo, though I pay about $1000 to pay it down faster. That leaves me just over $1000/mo to save and invest. Also, I am currently backed up with $3k in savings, plus another $21k in regular ($8k) and retirement ($13k) investments (which I could reach to if critically necessary), with more going to those every month.

So basically, while I do have alot of debt right now (spending almost 1/3 of my monthly income on debt would be far excessive for most people), my lifestyle allows me to handle that debt without worry. In the end, 5 years down the road I'll have all my debt paid off, and I'll have a significant amount of savings to boot.

[Brokemofo]

1st Mortgage $202k
2nd Mortgage $35k
Car $12k

Just paid off '07 truck, '07 and '04 motorcycles. First time I've ever had a vehicle paid for. I like the feeling bigtime. I will pay off the final car balance by christmas, and be left with only the 2 mortgages.

[cptacek]

I have been avoiding this question here, but I think it is time to come clean.

I owe about $5000 on my F-150 pickup. KBB has it worth between $5695 and $6520. Interest rate is 3.74%. I have another year of paying this off.

I have a student loan of $3143.44, with interest rate of 3.13%. Paying $50 per month on this.

I have a table/chairs that I bought on 0% interest until 2010 and I owe $428. I pay $27 a month to get it done a little early. Shouldn't have bought this, but hey, two years ago I had no idea that I was going to be a farmer.

We owe about $11,000 for cattle. That is all we owe on about 70 cow/calf pairs. The interest rate is 7.25% and I can write off the interest and I can depreciate the cows. Yearly payment of $6070 for the next two years on April 1 (after we sell the calves).

We owe $12,678 for a tractor and baler. Interest rate is 7.25%. We can depreciate the tractor and baler and write off the interest. Yearly payment of $4766, due Nov 15 for the next three years.

We owe ~$51,000 for a swather. Interest rate 4.25%. Yearly payment of $13,000 every February for the next 5 years. Again, depreciation and write off for this. Swather is worth about $65,000 (a guess).

We have a line of credit of $6700 at 7.25% (can write off this interest). We also have a 0% interest credit card of about $30,000. We used this for farm expenses. I wish we hadn't, but we did. I applied for another card that is 0% interest for a year, but i haven't heard anything from that yet.

We owe ~$14,000 on 80 acres of farm land. Land is worth at least $700 / acre means it is worth $56,000.

We owe $197,000 for 320 acres of pasture and a small amount of crop land. 5% interest. Bi-yearly payments of $9900, due Dec 1 and June 1. We just bought this. We bought it for $625 / acre. It is worth more than that, but we bought it from family, so they gave us a deal.

Total Debt $331,000.

Dang. I really didn't know it was that high.

[Kiri]

I think I'm in about $8000 of debt but I'm pretty happy with the way I spent the money. Travel.