Ask Lemmy

Fuckin debt free 😎

Own my car 😎

College educated 😎

Gainfully employed 😎

Making more than the average household in my state, solo 😎

So is my gf 😎

Still cannot afford a house 😢

I live in the Midwest region of the United States.

$55k in student loan debt, down from $100k eight years ago. $10k auto loan. $210k on the mortgage, which I honestly can't believe I was ever approved for. No credit card debt.

There have been some very scary moments, but I've somehow managed to keep my head more-or-less above water so far.

I'm almost 3k behind because my parents forced me into choosing college or the military at 18. I wasn't remotely ready for either (was dealing with extreme gender dysphoria at the time) and I'm deeply opposed to the army but sometimes I wish I had chosen otherwise -I don't know if I'm ever fixing this. All my cash goes to survival and everything I own is constantly breaking. Poverty is a vicious, vicious cycle...

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Financially, none. Morally? So much.

$27K in cc debt. Disgusting. Been dialing it in the last many months and paying off $2-3K a month.

OTOH, I may have my house paid off soon, so I got that going for me.

Seattle Washington area

10k in credit cards

110k in loans

430k mortgage

20k car loan

Credit cards are a little high but that's just because I just took a vacation to Japan. I feel like I'm in a good place otherwise. I was lucky enough to buy my house before the pandemic when interest rates were super low and prices hadn't yet spiked so I'm hoping to sell it in a few years when the interest comes back down. My loans are 50k I took out of my 401k as a down payment on house, 35k for a heloc to fix the house, and 20k on a personal loan.

None.

I have made it a point to live a debt free life as much as possible. My only debt is my mortgage. I've had a couple of car loans in the past, but nowadays not even that. I have quite enough wheels; If I buy another vehicle it'll be with cash. If I can't do that, I don't need it right now. (2 cars, 1 truck, 7 motorcycles. It's going to be a cold day in hell before my ass is out of transportation options.)

Debt free, own two paid off cars old enough to be cheap but new enough that the maintenance isn't too bad, and also they get good milage. We don't own a truck or an SUV. We rent, cook at home 90% of the time, and we're only just making it.

A car loan for a completely unnecessary car.

Can we afford it? Yes, with reasonable budgeting, no sacrifices needed.

Will the car appreciate? Undeniably.

Do we need a toy like this? Fuck no.

Did it anyway. I’ve been poor for such a long time it’s really hard to justify any frivolous purchase at all, but we have good jobs now. I waffle between “This is stupid” and “I’ll never get to do this again, so why not now?” Literally YOLO.

The rest of debt is “good”, like the mortgage building equity, a CC to keep credit rating good (paid off monthly).

Only a mortgage.

I had student loans, but I finished paying those ~5-6 years ago.

Bad, as a % of annual gross pay is about 25% of one year's pay. Mostly the deficit accrued from when my ex was not working. It's smaller than it was, but not by much. But moving in the right direction at least.

Plus mortgage on the house and a separate loan for the roof we had put on when we bought it.

ITT: few people having any clue what the difference is between good and bad debt, or that debt is basically essential to creating wealth.

Like £25k for a photography degree from 15 years ago. I moved to the US and paid bits of it back (it's means tested so you just tell them what you earn and they base it on that). I've been ignoring their letters because idk, I don't really want to pay it back? I remember the mandatory classes where we applied for ucas, so I feel like it's on them for shoving 18 year olds through the loan system for profit.

I had pretty substantial CC debt about a year ago. Nearing $14k. After health issues, having to move, replace many belongings, car repairs, etc. Used a 401k loan to pay off 10k of it, and since that loan was paid off (it was over $800 a month) I've paid the rest down under $3k, and should hopefully have it paid off by either year end or spring at the latest. Currently it's sitting in 0% APR though, so it's at least not eating away with interest.

I guess my mortgage could be considered bad debt on account of being adjustable interest rate - this is however the most common type of mortgage arrangement in Sweden where I live. This has led to my interest rate costs going up an eye watering 400% in about a year.

I've got ~130k in loans on it. I'm in the privileged position of being able to pay it off fully if the interest rate costs start exceeding the expected returns from the stock market, though, so feel no need to shed even a single tear for me.

The Swedish housing market is a classic zero interest trap story - low interest rates combined with tax incentives and housing availability rates leading to ownership being significantly more lucrative - has led to prices skyrocketing and debt to income ratios spiraling out of control. With adjustable rates being the most common arrangement - again, due to some truly psychotic public policy - now the population that lent money to buy homes are stuck with sickening monthly payments and no way to get out of the debt, since the prices have dropped below purchase price. Not too much though, because of how crazy scarce the housing is.

Everyone loses but the banks.

I have around 5k€ left to pay for my car, for the rest I just spend what I know I can. I have a credit card but I just keep it there for emergencies or to pay in installments when the seller doesn't allow it, everything else goes to the debit card.

Edit: for context since I just read "in the US", I'm italian. My school was 150€/year so I saved myself the school debt thing.

Art school degree was 80k. It's down to 40k now, still feels impossible.

80k€ for the house but other than that debt free and plenty of savings/investments

Went into 30k debt thanks to school and being injured and getting 1/3 of what I use to make. Had to use CC and other means which in itself was digging a bigger hole. I am 3k away from being done with fuckin debt. No house since this all happen during 08-10 fall out. 13 years. FML

No debt since we're only now looking for houses (yes yes, great timing, I know...) and I frankly wouldn't know what else I would need to spend so much money on that I would have to go into debt.

I have $150k in mortgage debt on a house worth about twice that. Plus a couple more years car debt.

What really gets me is my health insurer severed relations with the county in May and I got hospitalized two weeks ago. So now I will owe the $8,000 out of network deductible. That pisses me off.

$628.94 on my credit card.