I was nearly debt free by 40!.

keithmac

Hello all, I decided enough was enough around 5 years ago and £25000+ in debt on various cards and loans, put my head down and cleared most of it bar a few hundred here and there last year (it was very hard work, no treats and mortgage to pay too!).

I think at that point I'd got repayment fatigue!, treated the house to some new double glazed windows (to be fair this was a necessity) and managed to pay those off over the year.

Then we went "just for a look" at caravans, but the one the family fell in love with required a heavier car to pull it, so a nice loan for £15,000 from the bank was agreed and I bought a new to us family car, wife bought the caravan.. Again this could all be seen as an investment for the family and childrens holidays..

I nearly did it, nearly debt free by 40 (2 months to go), maybe I should just rejig it to debt free by 50 instead :rotfl:. Maybe I'll never get there..

enthusiasticsaver

At least you know the debt came from actual assets rather than overspending.

moneyfacts

I suppose debt can be relative to income, but why didn't you just save up for it this time ?

keithmac

Our kids are 5 and 10, we decided that if we waited much longer we'd lose the best use of the caravan, the decision was quite easy in that respect.

enthusiasticsaver

I would suggest that you start a savings account if you have not already and then next time you won't be tempted to borrow. I personally don't see anything wrong in taking out 0% credit to buy these things providing you don't have other debt. We do 0% for furniture if available even though we could afford to use our savings. Makes sense to keep it in the bank for an extra year or so to gain the pitifullly small interest we get on it.