When will you call yourself debt free?

immoral_angeluk

My mind has been contemplating this for a while now. When do you actually class yourself as being debt free? At the moment we're paying off all our unsecured debt (ie all our credit cards, loans, dca's etc.) and after weds will only have 2 left. I want to be able to call ourselves debt free after those last 2 are paid off but in reality we won't be as we'll still have a car loan which is secured on our car which will be paid up in sept 2010 unless we can find 4k to be able to pay off the loan next yr.
I think we'll just have to coin the term 'unsecured debt free' and live with that until we can pay the car off!

What about everyone else? When will you yourselves debt free?

livinginhope

Hi IA,I would call yourself debt free when the car is paid off,when all is gone,bar a mortgage,I would say you are debt free,we,on the other hand,will never be able to say we are debt free! never mind,I will have to keep coming to this site for a very long time LOL

mrsspendalot

I have split our debts into two kinds - interest debt and non-interest debt. We have 10 months until our interest debt is paid off (cards, catalogues, etc) and then we will have old debts left which are through DCAs and cost us no interest.

So 10 months until we are interest debt free
October 2009 until we are completely debt free

Broken_hearted

I will be debt free when I don't have any debt exept the mortgage.

Beanietdc

I am working towards the date when I have paid off my loan and my CC. I will still have my student loans but don't count these amongst the debt that I am working hard to pay off because I can do them at a pace that is comfortable to me rather than spending every last penny as I do at the moment.

Also I am on the old system where I need to be earning a certain amount before paying them back. That is some way off but once I have cleared my loan and CC I will be stuffing money into a high interest account to go towards my student loans.

I know I won't really be debt free while I have still got the student loans but that is how I am working at the moment!

Oh... and I will still have my mortgage.

ZTD

I won't be truly debt free until the mortgage is no more.

brainfreeze

I am going to consider myself debt free once all debts excluding my mortgage are cleared.

tesuhoha

I feel the same. However if you are debtfree apart from your mortgage and a car loan then you will have reasonable peace of mind I think. I know that you are paying interest on your car loan and that is your decision whether to pay it off or not. However, if you choose not to and want to get on with your life, that is also ok. I have a car loan which will be finished in December so hopefully it will coincide with my cc debtfreeness. If the ccs are not paid off by then I shall use the extra money to pay even more off them

Mozette

I'll feel debt free once all I've got is my mortgage, though once the rest of my debt is gone, I do intend overpaying on my mortgage so I can get rid of that sooner, but there is no way I could ever have a house without having a mortgage - as I don't have the knack with the lotto - so that is acceptable debt to me. I do think that once you have only debt for a good reason - house, car, something to actually show for it; which you can comfortably afford, then fine; when you're struggling and juggling with credit cards and it's all gone on God knows what, then that needs sorting! (talking about me here...)

GirlRacer_2

For me to call myself debt free it will be when all my CC's are paid off. The only debt I'll have then will be my mortgage and I'm going to try hard to overpay on that to become mortgage free ASAP.

Mindy_2

I agree with Mozette, not many people manage to buy a house without a mortgage, so once I have repaid all my unsecured debt (car loan included which will pay off before all the CC's anyway) I will be debt free. Although, I, like others intend to overpay on my mortgage once I get there.

I'm never going to get into debt again once I get there either. If I haven't got the money put by then I won't be having it - whatever "it" may be!