Debt

[donmara]

Most people I know are burdened in massive debts, and this includes myself. It's annoying, it pisses me off.

Anyway, whats your experience with debt, and how do you cope with it ?

[blindNsect]

All it means is that most people are shit decision makers/planners.

[honeythorn]

Originally Posted by donmara

Most people I know are burdened in massive debts, and this includes myself. It's annoying, it pisses me off.

Anyway, whats your experience with debt, and how do you cope with it ?

In which case stop buying things you have no money for. If you don't want to be in debt you'll simply have to go without or postpone some things until you have the money for them.

It really irritates me when people go wild with credit and debit cards ,buying shit they either don't need or know they can't afford,and then wonder why they are in debt. It's hardly rocket science.

. I do understand a credit card can be a useful fallback for emergencies, but too many people start out with that intention and then inevitably fall into the habit of buying "little" things. But they all add up in the end. You're stll spending money you don't have.

I have never in my life owned a credit card and I don't intend to. I only relatively recently obtained a debit card. I don't have an overdraft because again, it's spending money I don't own. A lot of my friends frequently spend into their overdrafts and then complain about being charged and huge chunks of money being sucked away when it's payday.

Just don't have one and set aside an account for savings. Stick to a plan of putting a certain amount of money into that accout and put the card well out of sight, not in your wallet where you can see it and be tempted to use any of the savings.

[Saya]

There's a lot more ways to get into debt, honeythorn. For a lot of people the only way to get an education is to take out student loans, and sometimes basic utilities bills can stack up, I got in a lot of trouble with debt because a phone bill was in my name and my then roommate wouldn't pay her half, took me a long time to pay all that off, a friend of mine is still in collections because of a similar situation. And when that happens, you kinda feel like you need a credit card to repair the damage that it did to your credit. And if you don't have credit, its hard to have independence, get a car, get a house, get utilities like internet and cable and phones, cell phones, some apartments won't even rent to you if your credit is really bad.

Donmara, do you go to university? They might have advisors to let you know what your options are, I guess it depends on how much you owe and if you're in collections yet or not. It would be better to get a more expert opinion on it. A boyfriend I had moved back into his parents house after he got into a lot of credit card debt for two months so he could get it all paid off without damaging his credit, it sucked living with his parents again but it was a fast solution at least. Another guy I know got his loans consolidated but thats not always the smartest thing to do because of interest, so just see what your options are first. Try not to worry about it too much, although thats easier to say than do.

[Solumina]

Jake and I have a combined debt of about $14000 but most of that is his car and student loans, and he has never missed a payment on either. The only credit card dept that we have is from car repairs which we have both needed in the past few months but that is almost completely done. Plus I have more than enough in investment accounts to cover all of the credit debt but it is earning more interest than I would save by clearing out the cards, so if I need the money it is still available .

I try to live after my parents example, though maybe not so such an extreme as these days you can't actually build credit without holding some debt. The only loan they ever took out was for their first house (they were even able to simply buy their beach house) and the only time that they didn't pay off a credit card in full at the end of a month was when my mother bought a new $27,000 car while also paying for both of her children to go to college, so it took her two months. The more wedding planning that I do the more I'm noticing how unusual it is for someone to be able to simply write a check for a few thousand dollars because most people just don't have access to that kind of cash, it just isn't really how most of society thinks.

Jake's parents are a lot more typical. They both make good money and are well above the median income for the area, they have a lovely house in a nice neighborhood, every couple of years they upgrade their cars, Fred has his motorcycle, they have a pool, they have family vacation every year, and every couple of years the two of them travel out of the country. They plan their spending based on whether or not they can expect to manage the payments, not what they can afford outright. Personally I couldn't live like that, I'd get paranoid that something would happen and that I wouldn't be able to make those payments and I wouldn't want to have to live with that thought constantly floating around inside my head.




As for how you can get rid of debt that is really dependent on your situation. The only constant is to keep your spending as low as you can and make the biggest payments that you can reasonably afford (no sense in making a huge payment if you have to pull out a credit card at the end of the month to afford groceries, which is a habit I had to help Jake break because once you pull that card out for one necessity you are much more likely to use it for other items and you end up spending a lot more than the extra that you initially paid off).

[Ben Lahnger]

Debt isn't necessarily the result of most people being irresponsible.


One catastrophic illness or unexpected stay in the hospital while your looking for work and uninsured can put you in a world of hurt. A family loses their breadwinner and suddenly that mortgage payment is impossible to make. A couple splits up, and the cost of living separate is higher than the income they take in individually. Sure, there are a lot of irresponsible people in the world, but the reason we no longer have debtor's prison in the United States is because as a society we recognize the capriciousness of this life - sometimes bad things happen to good people.

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by Solumina

Jake and I have a combined debt of about $14000

$32000 and rising. On my own.

[Solumina]

Damn dude, what on?

[blindNsect]

He is in England, shouldn't that be pounds?

[vindicatedxjin]

I have $1,200 in debt. . . Which I stress horribly on. After reading this thread I feel much, much better.

[blindNsect]

I am in the hole 15k for my Undergrad.

[Ben Lahnger]

Two months after I moved to Houston and had been on my new job for one month, I got Pneumonia with complications. Infected matter coated the inside wall of my left lung (this made the condition resistant to antibiotics) and the lung filled with fluid. I went to the hospital emergency room (due to not having health insurance during the job transition) after three days of increasingly labored breathing.

Thirteen days in the hospital and one thoracic surgery (in which they deflated and scraped out my lung, then re-inflated it) later, I was over $100,000 in debt.

Am I happy to be making payments on that bill? No, but it sure beats the alternative.

[Saya]

YIKES!

I'm going to go hug my MCP card now, and my meagre $12000 student loan debt.

[Ben Lahnger]

You have to have a sense of perspective.

As I type this, I've freeze framed the news crawl at the bottom of my TV screen, which reads:

"Coroner says actor Cory Haim died of Pneumonia complications."

I'm a very lucky man, six figure debt and all.

[Saya]

Thats true, my grandfather was in the ICU numerous times because of pneumonia complications before he died. I just think its insane to slap such a huge debt on someone who could've died, and through no fault of their own had to come to you.

[JustNSane]

I may or may not be hovering about the $50K mark. Currently in the process of fixing my past mistakes (including student loans to a school I never finished for one). The only utilities I have are electricity and water. No television. No internet really. I have a cellphone but I don't have to pay for it. 'Tis fun. But we're working on it.

[Raptor]

Yeah £21k so far, I just converted it because most of you are in the US.

Originally Posted by Solumina

Damn dude, what on?

A bit under half is tuition fees and the rest is student maintenance loans which mostly go toward rent. If you go something like 10 or 20 years with no job, or a low paid one, I think they cancel it. Not something I'm planning on doing though.

It sucks quite a lot but I like my course and I don't think I could have managed it very well alongside a job so there wasn't really another option.

I'm glad you got through the pneumonia Ben. It's horrible that you can get in so much debt for medical help there.

[Ben Lahnger]

Well, unlike other businesses, the hospitals here don't send delinquent bills to collection agencies. They handle them internally and after not being able to collect on them over a certain period of time (I think it's four or five years) they pay it off from an internal fund designated for such purposes.

So it's not like if I couldn't pay it my credit would be trashed and I'd be in debt forever. But I'm making payments so it will be around for a long time. I'm not claiming victim status ... just trying to be responsible.

[Saya]

Oh thats good, still, I feel lucky that thats one financial burden I won't have to worry about, and I still have my fingers crossed for you guys to get universal health care.