Do you owe more than you earn? Poll discussion/results 5 November 2007 at 12:46PM in Money Saving Polls 33 replies 8.2K views

Former_MSE_Lawrence

Poll Ran between 05-13 Nov 07: Do you owe more than you earn? Results

How much debt do you have compared to your annual income? We’re not talking any mortgage debt here; though if you’ve added other debts onto your mortgage, it's best to count that. Be prepared to be shocked…

How to work it out?

Step 1: Calculate your total debts. Don’t guess, add them up properly; this in itself is an important to-do.

Step 2: Divide the total by your annual income. If you owe £5,000 and earn £20,000 your debts are a quarter of your earnings.

A. I’ve no debt/only mortgage debt 38% (2876 votes)
B. I owe less than a tenth (10%) of my annual income 14% (1039 votes)
C. I owe less than a quarter (25%) of my annual income 12% (875 votes)
D. I owe less than a half (50%) of my annual income 10% (716 votes)
E. I owe less than my annual income 9% (655 votes)
F. I owe more than my annual income 9% (689 votes)
G. I owe more than double my annual income 4% (302 votes)
H. I owe more than three times my annual income 2% (170 votes)
I. I owe more than five times my annual income 3% (228 votes)

Voting has now ended but you can still click reply to discuss below.

Dill

Hi

Should we count student loan debt ?

(I have one of the 'old' student loans, and my earnings have never reached the threshhold, so it's always been deferred..)

TomJ

To get the figure, are you counting debt net or gross of savings; I owe money on an interest free credit card and interest free overdraft, but the amount is covered by savings...

Sapphire

Blimey! I'm amazed to see so far how much people owe. I couldn't sleep easily at night if I owed even as little as a thousand pounds.

Must be because everyone has been encouraged to take out loans and think they can do so without any consequences. What a shocking state of affairs.

jitsuguy

Well I'm not sure but I am not including a student load in this as they don't work the same as an ordinary loan and the payback amount isn't that much.

Jitsuguy

cazziebo

Gosh! I'm shocked! :eek:

I have worked hard to pay off all debts and credit cards over the past year and have been patting my back that as of Dec 1st, I'll have done it :T

Apart from a car loan, which I see as a necessary loan (always had company cars in the past). I'm shocked to find that the car loan is 20% of my annual salary - and that's on a really good salary and a not particularly great car.

certainly changed the way I think!

maddriver

I actually include Mortgage, which comes to a total of 4.5 times earnings !!

Then I reread it and realised it said not including mortgages, so I should have said 60%

Still, useful way of looking at things, brings a (scary) sense of perpective!

Ignatius_A

yup,
a
from a salary of approx 30k, I currently owe about 36k (not including mortgages)

No great surprise, as i'd already done this calculation, and i've got a firm handle on what I owe, and where. Done the credit card shuffle, and i'm now working steadily on getting things sorted.

And all thanks to Martin. I wouldn't have had a clue where to start but for this site.

:money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money: :money:

meyore

I owe 157% of my annual income-ouch...

lazy&indebt

I owe 54% of my annuak income in total.

But, after January I will be getting rid of my car (it's on HP) as I will have reached the point in my contract where I can hand it back. By that point, I will owe 24% of my total income

I earn £17,996 pa gross.

bigpat

Hmmm....I'm not too bad then. Apart from mortgage we only have a £500 overdraft out of combined salaries of approx £31k, so that's about 1.6%.

WITH mortgage however, we're up to 3.2 x joint salary