when you started here...

[LivingAlmostLarge]

When you guys started here did you have debt? A lot? A little? Did you change?

I was looking back at my Net Worth in 2007/2008 and that was when our debt was the highest. We had around $50k in student loans then in 2010 we got a car loan which we paid off in 6/2015 to get more car loans in 1/2016 to pay off now in 9/2020. But I hadn't realized how much in student loan debt we had but it makes sense. I had some from undergrad but I paid that off in 2002 but then we started graduate school for DH and myself in I had $21k then we paid it down while taking out more for him and I saw the highest balance between us was $50k. It was insane. When I think about it I didn't realize we had so much student loan debt. I had forgetten and mostly recall my undergrad $10k. Considering it was around 50% of our joint salary it was a lot of debt to have taken on along with our $450k mortgage at the time. Being in debt $500k total seems insane.

And yes I changed. I came here to find out about investing more. But I also realized that leveraging all times (why we took out our student loans was so that we could max out our 401k and Roth IRA) was a bit crazy. We could have cash flowed college if we hadn't done that. But we decided to leverage ourselves and instead take the risk. Now it turns my stomach still.

It also makes me realize how much I really want to help my kids not be in debt to that extent.

[corn18]

When I signed up here, I had $160k of consumer debt (cars, credit cards) and a $500k mortgage. And I was spending $3k more a month than I was making.

[kork13]

When I started here, I was approaching college graduation, and I think I would have had about $32k or so in debt, between a $12k car loan (my dad tried to convince me out of it... wish I had listened) and a $20k "career starter" personal loan (wow, what a marketing crock that was).

At that time, I didn't really have a good concept of the risk that debt brings into your life. I was young, ignorant, and confident in my ability to do anything. So obviously, alot has changed since then. At this point, now that I'm completely debt free, I can't stand the idea of ever going back into debt. Yes, it would be easy.... But extremely uncomfortable, and not worth the cost of giving up the peace & comfort of being beholden to no one.

[riverwed070707]

I dug out one of my first posts a couple years ago and did a then an now. In 2011 when I joined I was nearing paying off all my consumer debt (about $20k), married, DD was 3. I haven't carried debt (other than a whole lot of mortgages!) in a number of years and my previously negative net worth just reached over $500k. Here's an overall picture update:

2011 joint net income=$3000
2018 primary net income=$4,300
2020 primary net income=$4,900

2011 rental income: $134
2018 net rental income: $2,200
2020 net rental income: $2,700

2011 retirement savings: $28,000
2018 retirement savings: $158,000
2020 retirement savings: $220,000

2011 savings: $5,500
2018 savings: $13,000
2020 savings: $60,000.... getting ready to buy another rental though, so this will be going down

Currently have about $450k in mortgages on 3 homes with a combined value of $586k, $210k of the mortgages is on my primary. After I pick up this next one or two, I'm done buying and will start directing all my rental profits to pay down the mortgages on my rentals (not my primary because I will likely sell it in the next 10 years). Goal will be to have them paid in 7 years when DD graduates.

Can confidently confirm, although this board isn't my go to for real estate investing advice, I would not be where I am today without SA

[breathemusic]

I started here in 2012 and was 4 years out of undergrad. I had a little bit of student load debt then, but through a work sponsor program I had it paid off within a few years. After that I was debt free for years until about 3.5 years ago when I bought a house with a mortgage of almost $600k. So realistically I'm at almost peak debt now, but it's mortgage debt that I can easily afford, so I'm not worried about it. My debt might go up if my brother decides to buy a home (I've offered to co-sign a mortgage because him and his wife retired young and banks don't like that he doesn't have a real income stream, but he'd rather not buy outright in cash given current low interest rates, so I'm not really worried about getting stuck with the bill, but we'll draw up a contract to address the risk anyway just in case).

I make more now than I ever did, and am saving more now than I ever did in history, even with having a mortgage. I came here because I've always liked finance and thought it would be a good resource for investment questions and other random things. I can't say that I've really changed that much in my thinking and how I operate financially though. I've just gotten to the point where I'm not a broke kid out of college and now I can afford things!

[disneysteve]

I started here in June 2006.

Mortgage: $103,366
Home equity loan: $21,079
We probably had one car loan also.
Portfolio value: $319,661

Today:

Debt: ZERO
Portfolio value: $1,494,739
(That does not include home value)

[ua_guy]

Without looking up exact details, going from memory... 2010-ish...

We were two kids way underwater on a crappy old house with a primary ARM and a 2nd mortgage, with minimal retirement and cash savings, vehicle debt was somewhere around $90k. Spending like we shouldn't and not saving like we should. But, no other debts. Maybe $20k in cash between the two of us and maybe $50k combined retirement.

In the last 10 years we've worked hard on financial strategy as well as income earning abilities. The 6-month forecast is we'll be paying off a home worth $1.2M. Retirement/investments is sitting at about 1.3M. We'll have somewhere around $150k in cash savings, recently reduced due to the home purchase. No other debts. Our vision of the next 10 years is to really bolster retirement funds and set aside a little more money to keep the house in good shape. I'm still looking at 50-55 to pull the plug early on work and settle into a cheaper lifestyle in a lower COL area but still close to friends/family.

None of it is guaranteed, but that's Plan A. The dream looks like finding or building about a 2500sqft single-story log home with a metal roof on 5 acres with a shop building, all surrounded by wilderness. Couple of paid off vehicles and an RV. Walking, volunteerism, writing, some RV travels, maybe some global travel - one or two places we'd really like to see. Bicycling, tinkering, birdwatching, and tending to any seniors in the family who may still be alive. Until we get old. We will have no family left, no children. Then it becomes about pulling money from the estate to care for ourselves and staying in our home for as long as we can.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm really impressed by how much people have turned things around and paid off their debts like crazy. It's very impressive.

[MonkeyMama]

We are boring and have always been very anti-debt. So I can't say that much has changed. I probably expected our house would have been paid off by now, but life has thrown us a few curveballs. The big surprise/change is that we still have debt?

2006:
Age 29
Cash/Investments: $60,000
Home Equity: $430,000
Debt: $218,000 mortgage

2020:
Age 43
Cash/Investments: $530,000
Home Equity: $360,000 (home value is still $150K below peak levels = reason for decrease)
Debt: $135,000 mortgage

{I threw in age for some frame of reference}.

I can't say we've put much effort to our mortgage. But... It's been snowballing down pretty fast with significantly lower interest rates in recent years.

[bjl584]

I'd have to dig in deep and look, as I've moved about 3 times since 2006.
But, ballpark I had around $100K in assets then and around $700K now

[Randomsaver]

Nice thread. disneysteve helped me on this thread when I was on the fence of doing a refi or not. I was asking the question if it's worth to refi if it's only going to save me $10K and disneysteve said to do it even if it's just $5K. So thanks again my man disneysteve!

So I did. And I started our House Mortgage thread in Apr 2014 with my debt at $207K. It's been 6.5 years now since then and I paid an annualized $25K principal off to get it down to $43K currently. Nothing beats having low mortgage balance. Who would have thought covid would come in and take away alot of businesses and jobs and hurt the economy 6 years after that start?

Now I am enjoying this small very manageable mortgage debt that I am in no hurry. My original plan stays that is a 10 year countdown and investing more. It is so much more enjoyable investing when there is little debt. I understand the math POV of it, that over time, the investments beat debt killers. But from psychological POV, debt killing beats investments.

Not sure about who wins election but I don't think if Biden wins, we get a 100% surge in 4 years in tech stocks. again and we may get a good 8 years of no growth this time around, which is perfect for accumulation stage people. So I am looking forward to minimal payment of mortgage and maximize contributions in investing.

[kork13]

When I started here, I was approaching college graduation, and I think I would have had about $32k or so in debt, between a $12k car loan (my dad tried to convince me out of it... wish I had listened) and a $20k "career starter" personal loan (wow, what a marketing crock that was).

At that time, I didn't really have a good concept of the risk that debt brings into your life. I was young, ignorant, and confident in my ability to do anything. So obviously, alot has changed since then. At this point, now that I'm completely debt free, I can't stand the idea of ever going back into debt. Yes, it would be easy.... But extremely uncomfortable, and not worth the cost of giving up the peace & comfort of being beholden to no one.

This thread made me curious enough to go back and find my very first post... apparently I had $13k in a Roth IRA, and that "career starter loan" was actually $30k.....yippee... And of course, I sure thought I was pretty smart having $20k that loan invested, just a handful of months before the 2008 crisis (lol -- ever wonder why you shouldn't invest with borrowed money?). Gratefully, I was 21 y/o and the temporary losses didn't matter. I was able to buy my way through each major market dip (hooray DCA) since then and have done well for myself thus far.

[disneysteve]

This thread made me curious enough to go back and find my very first post...

And that made me curious. My first few posts were comments on other threads and answers to questions. The first post where I gave any personal info was here https://www.savingadvice.com/forums/...ge2#post137204 where I said I was projecting being a millionaire at age 53. That was 11 years away at the time and turned out to be right on the mark. We hit $1 million in the 2nd half of 2017 when I was 53. I guess those online calculators work pretty well. Kind of neat to look back at that projection now.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

How do you find your first post?

[kork13]

How do you find your first post?

Wasn't terribly easy, but I went into each of the main forums (General Discussion, Investing & Banking, Personal Finance, etc.), went to the very last page, noted when I joined the forums, and started clicking through the page counter 100 at a time until I found posts from that rough timeframe. Then clicked through each page until I found my opening post.

What can I say, it was a Saturday afternoon & I got curious. Lol