debt poll - Page 2

[ani'smommy]

Originally Posted by PiePie

I will volunteer that I am worried about my school loans.

Yep, we've got about $40,000 in school loans to go. Ugh. We will soon have two mortgages (we own a rental), so there's some debt there, but I'm not too worried about that.

We don't have credit cards, thankfully.

[abbylotus]

Yes and No. We have debt (mortgage, cc, student loans, medical bills) but we pay on everything on time and are working to pay them off but I worry about what would happen if something happened to Dh (the breadwinner). I suppose it doesn't pay, health wise, to worry about something you have no control over, right?!

[Aliviasmom]

No. As far as the debt that is in collections ( I don't have any extra money to pay on it. By the time I get out of college, it will be off my credit. (It's not a TON of money, it's not credit cards, and it's spread out over many places.)

As far as my student loans, I'm not even sure how much they are at this point. I'm living with the thought right now that I will be able to afford the payments once I graduate.

[HipGal]

I wouldn't say I worry about it, but I'd still love to get rid of it!

We have a mortgage (not gonna pay that off for a long long time, I'm sure) and my student loan (more do-able). We happily don't have any credit card debt or car loans right now. Yay!

[MujerMamaMismo]

We are paying off our car and other than that have very little consumer debt. I am more worried about not having any real savings than I am about debt.

[formerluddite]

didn't vote, not sure how to vote, worry is such a broad word...

we pay our monthly debts, put $ into retirement, extra onto my student loans (borrowed $65K in 1993-95, still paying $13K off after 3 years' deferral during lean post kid years when i stayed off work completely for 6 mos, and minimum payments when the interest rate was 2.2%), have no car loans, pay off full cc bal each month, a few months' cushion in liquid investments, have "play money" for hobbies.

but, we live in CA: our mortgage (including prop taxes and insurance) is $40,000 a year. not much can make that kind of payment seem unworrisome, even if we do have ~50% equity in the house these days. we can't refinance without a jump in rate, and we got a first and second (both are just under 6%), so that the first would stay under the "jumbo loan" cuttoff (at that time) and thus be 1/2% cheaper.

so we can't get an "equity line" since it has to be in the "second" position. if we were able to get an equity line, i'd pay off the SL's with some of our savings (since they are 5.2% now), and then pay more on our mortgage each month with the ~400/mo SL payment money. then if an emergency came up we'd use the equity line for cash. meanwhile we'd save a couple percent on the difference between the loan rate and our savings rate.

where's alfred e newman when you need him: "what, me worry?"

(anyone old enough to remember him?)

[boingo82]

Not anymore, thank goodness.
Our only debt is our house.

[Alkenny]

Like so many other have said, not anymore. 6 months ago, yes...terrified! But our job situation has changed. We've even added a mortgage to our debt-load, but we've almost paid off our CC and only have 1 car loan now (paid off the truck loan) so we're doing MUCH better.

[GooeyRN]

No, I am not worried about it. Our mortgage is only $780 a month, and one car payment of $350. We paid off all of our student loans and credit card debt. DH has a well paying career, and I work part-time to contribute to savings and doing fun stuff.

[MorganRiley]

not anymore...we are debt free as of 2 months ago yipeeeeeeeee

[phathui5]

Yes. Before February, the only debt we had was what we had chosen to carry and knew we could pay. Then dh's work (who had been giving him a monthly car allowance to make his car payment) decided to switch to company cars, thus taking away said car allowance. Because we owe too much on the car, we can't sell it. We couldn't get enough selling it to pay off the loan and get the title released to a buyer. So we're stuck with a car payment we can't afford.

[nolonger]

Nope. We may be dirt poor, but at least we're debt free. My crdit card bill has always been paid off every month, although it is going to be a bit high this month because of everything I spent on the new baby, from KD's travel expenses to my diaper stash.

I'm not at all sure how long we can keep it up, though. dd will be filing a FAFSA this year just to see what's available in the way of scholarships and grants, but she'll be finishing up community college and I'm not at all sure I can handle University tuition all on my own AND a new baby.

[Belleweather]

Yes. We've worked hard to stay credit card, car-payment and other debt free, but we have about $150K in student loans between me (law school and undergrad) and DH (undergrad). We'd been hoping that we'd get jobs easily in our fields and work on paying that down aggressively, but I wound up unexpectedly pregnant which is putting a crimp in the job hunt and means most of the 'extra' we had been budgeting toward aggressive debt payment will be going toward daycare instead. Plus, we're still job-hunting, and until we're more stable (ie. hired and moved with some idea how we're going to pay for the baby's birth) the loans have to stay in deferment, which always worries me.

On the other hand, we work hard to keep our monthly necessary expenses as low as we can because we've always known we'd have to be able to 'afford' our debt, and we can handle the minimum payments on a pretty low salary which makes me feel good.

[lisalulu]

I wasn't sure how to answer. I am not worried about the debt we have in the sense that we are paying it off fast and aren't accruing any more. What I am a worried about is the time we are losing paying the debt off when the money could be going into a retirement account. We should be putting 900/month in dh's 401K and instead its going to debt payoff and probably will for a year or two more.

[BookGoddess]

No, not really. We don't have a car loan or credit card debt. When we do use our CCs, pay off the credit card bills in full each month. The debt we have is our mortgage and DH's student loans but we're making good progress on both.

[celestialdreamer]

No, I'm not worried about debt, because we don't have any. We don't have any credit cards, and our home and cars we own outright. I do worry about the fact that we have no savings (besides DH's IRA, but thats not useable). We are trying to do a major remodel on our home so we can sell next spring and buy some acreage to have a small farm/homestead. Its really hard to get all the work we need done here, when you are doing it on your monthly budget (which has little leftover).