If you are / have been in debt...

[jodi]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

Student loans are the vast majority of our debt. DH and I graduated with the maximum each in Stafford loans - $15k ($30k total). Even though in our first jobs we were making $15,500 and $19,000, we did pay them down to $12k over six years. Then DH lost his job and went back to school last year - so more student loans. We have gotten through 5 semesters with only taking two more loans ($9k total), so our total student loan debt is now $21k.
We can't even focus on this debt yet as DH is still student teaching and not getting paid. Hopefully he will get work in the spring and we can start a plan of attack. Until then, I am just keeping us afloat and making our minimum payments.
Luckily, my parents taught me a great deal about credit, so I never fell into the cc trap. Dh did briefly in college, amassing close to $1000 (which is really nothing now, but it seemed like a death sentence when we were in school). I helped him pay it off and now his credit score is about 770 -almost as good as mine

[abowers]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

How did I get into Debt?
Going to a private College, and stupidity while in college.

I owe:
--$1000 - HSBC Credit Card, 0% through May 2007
--$920 - MBNA Credit Card, 0% through July 2007, then 10.9% (just got it reduced)

-----> I would like to point out that through my savings I:
-- just wiped out $500 overdraft account that I stupidly was not paying off at 19% at a local bank where I lived until last year,
--Since this Spring I wiped out $1500 in credit card debt on the MBNA card and reduced the rate from 19% down to 10.9% and have transferred some balances to take advantage of the 0% interest rate.
--Took care of my $600 Old Navy Credit Card Balance (17%?)
--Took care of my $450 Gap Card Balance (17%?)
--Paid off my <$200 Victoria's Secret Card (high rate)

All of these were stupid past balances from a few years ago while in college. But I decided enough was enough after reading these forums. Even though I was only working as a preschool teacher, I worked overtime, I made bags for extra money, I babysat on evenings and weekends so that I could make extra money, and cut down on my spending so I could work my way down on these credit cards that were killing me. I've got all my extra money in my ING account earning 4.4% in the meantime, and have a payment plan figured out to have both big credit cards paid off before the end of their 0% promotional periods.

--$16,000 undergrad loans, in deferment due to grad school through May 2009, but 2.6%, 168 months to go (consolidated, which extended from 10 years to 15 years)
--$12,800 car loan 4.9%, 50 months to go.
--$12,750 subsidized Stafford Loans for the first year and a half of grad school (no interest accrues until 6 months after November 2009, then 6.8% over 10 years unless it drops before then.

Anyway, I've been working my butt off to pay this debt down, and I'm proud of how I'm doing so far!

[tgavin71]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

We got into debt because we didn't track our spending. Simple. I don't think we made any stupid decisions like taking $5000 holiday and putting it all on credit. It was just a little bit here a little bit there. Not enough money in the cheque account don't worry well put it on the card. We'll get more money when I go back to a sea posting (hubby was in navy at the time). Eventually our credit card was maxed out. We refinaced the car and the card into a personal loan of $25,000. $10,000 was credit card debt.

We stay focused on staying out debt by writing everything down. Also have kids means that we rarely go out so our entertainment costs have plummetted.

At the present time our only debt is our mortgage which is at $96,000 australian. No credit card debt and $4700 in our cheque account.

[vsjhoc]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

Anyway, I've been working my butt off to pay this debt down, and I'm proud of how I'm doing so far!

You should be proud! You have done a great job -- keep up the great work!

[Elgin526]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

What caused the majority of your debt?
The majority is from our wedding and DH's truck loan.

How much do / did you owe?
At it's peak, $20,000 on the CC and $18,000 for the truck. DH bought the truck just before we met (I would have talked him out of it otherwise!). Now, the CC is down to about $16,000 and the truck is around $12,000.

How did you stay focused to get out of debt?
We got serious the moment we got back from the honeymoon in Oct. of 2005 (about 1 year ago). Most of our extra money goes towards the CC, once that's paid down we'll work on the truck.

We are staying focused by not allowing ourselves to take any major vacation (including my beloved Diseny World!) until the CC is paid off. The debt is also keeping us from doing other things we'd like to do, we keep having to say "some day when the debt is gone". It gets real anoying real quick! Also, I want to put off having kids until the CC is at least paid off. I don't want to have an infant with that kind of debt hanging over our heads.

[Ima saver]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

I think a lot of people regret having expensive weddings when they have to pay for it later.

[Elgin526]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

I think a lot of people regret having expensive weddings when they have to pay for it later.

I wouldn't say we regret it. We'd do it again, but I'd work much harder to pay for more of it in cash upfront rather than just say "we'll worry about it later!".

It's the truck that makes me want to cry! Cars a such a waste of money!

[abowers]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

Regarding my edu loans... I'm hoping it's worth it in the end, as a BA in Psych is sort of useless, but the EdS will allow me a starting salary of around $48k-$54k per year as a School Psychologist in this area. And on a teacher's schedule :-D So once I'm done with this whole thing (May of 2009) I'll have my $16k undergrad and about $20k grad, but I'll be able to pay off the edu & car loans quicker once I start my real job.

[abowers]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

I think a lot of people regret having expensive weddings when they have to pay for it later.

We're working on that right now as well... We have agreed we will not go into any debt over this wedding we are planning for August 2007. We are paying for this, but my parents and my aunt are paying for a couple things here and there, and his parents have a chunk of money set aside for us to use how we want (we are only using a little toward the wedding and the rest will be saved for a down payment on a house when that happens in a few years). We figured how much we can save before then/how much we want to spend by then - and that's our budget. No more loans!

[abowers]

Re: If you are / have been in debt...

Just following up on this... I pulled out one of my free credit reports from last year at this time to see exactly where I stood a year ago--
In October 2005, my revolving debt: credit limit ratio was .745!!!
In Feb 2006, debt: credit limit- .675
Now, October 2006: .387!!!

Still higher than I'd like of course, but I've been working on it! This is with closing one of my $500 limit accounts -- my overdraft (that was carrying a balance ) from a local bank account I had before moving to a new state (where I am now). If I had kept that open it would have made my ratio .335, but I have no use for it -- and I'm not in the market for a house for several years so I figured I'd close it now.