just a question

climbgirl

Montymoo wrote:

I supposed I dont mean guidance as such. I was very naive when it came to banks and now its all backfired on me

It's not an easy thing to grasp if nobody ever explains the whole finances to you, I'm not an expert by any stretch! Just be careful about any advice a bank gives - they're only going to plug their own products and services after all!

Having said that, if you can strike a good person to deal, who knows their stuff, they can be really helpful. It's just being in a position to know the difference I guess

little_miss_broke_2

Unless they're telling me fibs, hardly any of my friends are in debt. I know of 1 that is in a hell of a mess, but until she faces it properly there's nothing i can do to help her. Her answer to it is to spend more to cheer herself up (silly girl.) But then, for all i know, my friends could be in the same mess as me - after all, none of them know about my situation.

My parents and H's parents are the only people i know with NO debt at all, as in no mortgage or anything.

Busybody

The only thing we owe is the mortgage. We don't have any credit cards.

tra_2

I'm not in debt. We only have a 67k mortgage. This is mainly due to my husband, who is the sensible one! I do appreciate how lucky we are.

Lucifer

Unfortunately debt is now as common as having a job! We probably all have had parents from a completely different era - who don't live in the buy now pay later. But yet we still continue to do it... we will learn one day

LookingAhead

The only person I know who has never been in debt is a really annoying ex boyfriend.

He was annoying because he always said you should save up for things and only get them if you had the cash....which was easy for him coming from the perfect 2.4 children family where his parents were quite well off and also he was earning £30k per annum (that's minimum as he was a sales manager) and I was on <10k and trying to "keep up" with him socially. He was quite tight as well...I felt pressured to always 'go dutch'.

The last I heard he was on about 50k and driving a Jag.

Pass me a bucket. :exclamati

jules-2005

The only people I know who don't owe a penny to anyone are my parents and my uncle and aunt.

I recently split up with my husband although we are now back together and I was going through my finances with my Dad (to see if I could afford to keep the house on my own) who was absolutely horrified at our situation.

Our debt is manageable and certainly not out of control although I have picked up so much information from this site recently that I am getting our finances in order before they get on top of us.

catkins

I don't have a mortgage or any credit cards. Am not in debt and have never been very much in debt. My parents also are not in debt.

I do struggle quite a bit though even with everyday bills but just have to cut back on things. I buy most of my clothes from charity shops and most of my furniture is secondhand, mainly bought from ads in local paper.

peterg1965

It is in the nature of us 'Brits' that we dont talk about money very openly to family and friends, its different on here of course! I would say that most peole I know have debts of some kind, how they cope with them is hard to say. People who have no debt at all are very very few I would postulate (particularly if you include a mortgage).

fairylights_2

The only people I know who don't owe anything are the outlaws. Still, we'll be joining them soon enough.

I have to agree that most people are in debt (even just their mortgage) but as is clear from here people just don't see that as debt. It's a necessity, I think. Especially as prices keep rising and people can't afford to buy WITHOUT help from somewhere. And for most people that's a mortgage lender.

The point is whether you consider whatever debt you're in to be bad debt. If you owe £1k but it's at 0%, and you're sitting on 1k in the bank, then that's not so bad as 100k at 5% with no money put away in reserve. For us, any owing is bad. That said, we may well need a mortgage in the not too distant future. Then it'll be mortgage free wannabe for us!