Do you live with debt?

[Gandalf]

It just seems to me reading all this economic doom and gloom that the misery has been stage managed by ignorant buffoons who really don't give a shit as long as they are in the clear. Governments have encouraged economic growth by urging consumption and this has led to lazy people being more and more willing to get into debt in order to satiate their desires. How many people have a mortgage? How many people bought their brand new car on credit? Who borrowed to buy their kids ridiculously priced new gadgets for christmas just to keep up with the neighbors? It's a massive encouragement to be frivolous and to fail to contemplate the future and be sensible by putting money away for a rainy day.

I was reading an article today talking about how Korean consumers typically have a debt of double their income and it just made me think 'how did it ever come to this?'. It's serious stuff and too many people seem to spend in the here and now, borrow up to their teeth and just hope to keep on muddling through. It is all wrong IMO, but I don't speak from the higher ground as I too was fiscally frivolous until my mid-20's. When did it become so wrong for normal people to try and save money? I see too many people with children and they invest everything into the child in terms of education, gadgets and clothing and it seems to me nothing more than a false investment. "I will live in debt until you grow up and then you will provide for me". Hmm, why not abstain from having children and provide for your own retirement and that way you can retire without placing a burden upon others.

It just seems to me that people have children without planning, they have no savings because they refuse to plan and ultimately we have decimated societies where the middle and lower classes have next to nothing. Now when the economic shit storm hits, where do they go then? Mind you it isn't great to be middle class and sensible either as governments are eradicating savings through inflationary policies. It's all a crock of shit to keep anyone outside the elite in difficulty, but I think it's foolish to just consume and copulate without a care in the world too.

So a mildly economic thread. Do you live with debt? I will admit that I used to, but I refuse to ever do it again. Interest rates and the difficulties of getting out of debt are just not worth it. You need to sacrifice in life and in order to stay above water you need to self regulate.

Views?

[Gandalf]

Furthermore, I hate the way when you start a thread similar old threads come up beneath. Every time I seem to have started a similar thread about a year before. How am I supposed to remember all these threads I have started? Clearly there are character patterns at work and my psycho analyst would have a field day with some of this material.

[erics44]

My debts are my house and i am £150 overdrawn in one account and about £500 in another

my wife is out of work at the minute so that why the overdrafts are creaping up a bit

[Gandalf]

A mortgage is something I can kind of understand. People do need a home to live in and rents can be expensive and you get nothing for it. But the interest over 20 odd years is a killer and you are pretty much tied to it. A mortgage is a seriously hardcore investment, you need to make sure that job is permanent and you can stay on top of things. I'm not sure I would ever want to take on that kind of debt. Extremely risky in this day and age.

[erics44]

A mortgage is something I can kind of understand. People do need a home to live in and rents can be expensive and you get nothing for it. But the interest over 20 odd years is a killer and you are pretty much tied to it. A mortgage is a seriously hardcore investment, you need to make sure that job is permanent and you can stay on top of things. I'm not sure I would ever want to take on that kind of debt. Extremely risky in this day and age.

you will always need somewhere to live tho, even if you rent you cant just decide you cant afford it anymore and stop

[Gandalf]

Also with these expensive tuition fees and banks lining up to fleece the new teenage consumers that debt is almost being ingrained into society. Debt is being seen as a natural state of affairs, unless you are the super rich and it shouldn't be that way. If schools can offer sex education classes, then they should also provide money management classes and counter the predatory financial institutions, but of course the state wouldn't really want to encourage that.

[Gandalf]

A mortgage is something I can kind of understand. People do need a home to live in and rents can be expensive and you get nothing for it. But the interest over 20 odd years is a killer and you are pretty much tied to it. A mortgage is a seriously hardcore investment, you need to make sure that job is permanent and you can stay on top of things. I'm not sure I would ever want to take on that kind of debt. Extremely risky in this day and age.

you will always need somewhere to live tho, even if you rent you cant just decide you cant afford it anymore and stop

True, and I think that is a valid point. Mortgage debt is sometimes a necessary thing and I can see that. It is still fairly risky though and there is no guarantee that one is going to be employed all that time. At least with rent you can find something cheaper when things go wrong. There is never any excuse for never having banked some coin though and when things are tough you always need at least a little shrapnel to tide you over. A mortgage should be viewed as a life and death struggle and in many cases it probably is at some point.

[AdamGB]

I have about £600 of a debt which is going down each month.

I have a few hundred on a credit card and I'm usually a few hundred overdrawn.

My out goings are pretty much the same as my income so I spend what I earn. Most of the debt came from when I was in between jobs and it's not going down quicker because I've been investing a lot into my business recently.

[BIG H]

When I was 23 years old I had £23,000 of debt in loans and credit cards, now I have virtually nothing and don't even use a credit card (the evil of the world!)

[Andre]

No I own it all.

[Gandalf]

Interesting reading.

I was just curious really. I read my media everyday and see things around me and just wonder what the deal is for real folks on here.

Andre sounds like he's done very well for himself and so he he should being one of the more mature adventurers on here. Also good to hear that Big H is taking control and that Adam is becoming entrepreneurial too.

In my early 20's I was a bit like Big H and owed a fair bit and had nothing, but with a lot of hard work over the years and a serious mental overhaul I have eradicated the entire concept of debt and it just frustrates me when I read articles talking about the issue.

I drive a second hand car because I am not shallow enough to think that a new one really matters beyond getting to a destination, but it seems too many are stuck in the vain pursuit of empty consumerist goals at the expense of any guarantee of a decent old age. Governments are supporting very little when we are old and it's good to wise up to that sooner rather than later. And governments play the same game at the expense of younger generations when it comes to their own borrowing. It's quite sickening really.

A life without debt is the first aim for anyone and to then to try and at least guarantee some kind of future without government interference. Only then is anyone somewhat free. Government insurances are ponzi schemes that could collapse at any time. As are currencies too. They are worthless according to the whims of any government.

I started a thread an age back wondering if gold was the way to go for investment. The price has rocketed! I never invested and that frustrates me a fair bit, because I would have done well. Currencies are more kamikaze than ever. I am deviating from the thread somewhat, but just contemplating my own missed opportunities, which are on the whole, careful, but perhaps too careful.

[Scrap]

Im the same as Andre, plus Im Happy with what I have.

[VictorCharlie]

I have a home mortage of 130K and I think we have about 10k left on my wife's student loans. We have financed a couple vehicles but we have always put more than 50% down and paid them off quickly. We almost never have a balance on the credit cards. Really the only time we use them at all are for emergencies. So outside of my home and for the next year or so the rib's student's loans, we avoid debt like the plague.

[Gandalf]

I have a home mortage of 130K and I think we have about 10k left on my wife's student loans. We have financed a couple vehicles but we have always put more than 50% down and paid them off quickly. We almost never have a balance on the credit cards. Really the only time we use them at all are for emergencies. So outside of my home and for the next year or so the rib's student's loans, we avoid debt like the plague.

Sensible behaviour. I do use credit cards, but only to order certain bulk products online and I pay it off immediately. I refuse to pay interest on that junk.

Credit is too easy and IMO people are too stupid and uneducated and I include smart, educated people in that list too. I watch TV and see loan commercials everywhere. However, I also read Russian literature of the 1800's and the money lenders are there too. Seemingly omnipresent and impossible to truly ever wipe clean.

[AdamGB]

I'm paying for a modest car on finance... it would take me too long to save for it I need it for business reasons. I would never take out any other form of loan though. That's one of the reasons my PT/Boot Camp Business has been a slow burner. Everything... and I mean everything, every bit of kit is something that I have either saved and paid for, or built.

I'd guess that about 3 quarters of what I have earned has gone back in to it and then I work paid hours on top of it to keep ticking over. I'm just about at the point now where it's all starting to turn in to income.