What do you consider debt?

[DevineMommie]

I was reading another post and it was great. But I realized people have different ideas of what debt is. When you say "How much debt do you have?" People seem to think credit cards only.  Most don't count their mortgages, car loans, credit lines, or student loans into the equation. 

I know we all see mortages and cars as a must but they are still debt. They are secured debt but they affect our monthly budgets more than the miniums on most credit cards.  Then you have student loans which average over 20,000 dollars for most households.

Most of us live paycheck to paycheck and we can't seem to get ahead or figure out why.  The answer is actually really simple. We don't actually earn any money we can keep. Most of our income already has someone elses name and mailing address on it before we even get it on Friday.  A lot of us have cars that we truly can't afford and have houses we struggle to continue to pay for. Simply because our budgets don't match our incomes.  We either live right at our means or a little above thanks to plastic.

I know we all have different circumstances and I am preaching to myself here as well.

My husband and I had an unplanned circumstance change our lives about two years ago and it was a real wake up call. For the first time in our married lives we were not able to make ends meet. We weren't even able to float this bill in order to put food on the table. It was a miserable feeling and I seriously didn't think we would make it through this financial nightmare. But we did thanks be to God.  After that I realized that the debt we had was strangling us. It didn't feel like that when all was well but when the plan didn't work the way we had planned it would then reality hit. We didn't have enough saved to make it more than a month. ( We had 4,000 saved) Our life was dependent on the steady flow of the same amount of money. If you took even a little out of that flow then the whole equation melted quickly. It didn't take long for our financial world to crumble and it has taken a year and  a half of hard work to bring it back.

I'm actually grateful this happened because it motivated us to become debt free. Not just of credit cards but car payments as well. I would love to conquer my mortgage and truly own my house but that will take longer.  It's amazing that if you step back and re do your math without expensive car payments how much you can save. Then get rid of the monthly payments to credit cards and it's such a freeing experience. To have money come into your account that doesn't already have someone else's name on it is such a great feeling. To actually be able to start on the road to real wealth by having money to save and build wealth is amazing. 

We are now of the mentality that "Cash is King" and thier is a reason for it. It we can't pay for it with cash then we don't buy it.  At the end of the day it is all just plastic crap!

[megan772]

Dec. 2, 2008 at 2:32 PM

I cant agree with you more we have been debt free from everything but our home for almost two years and we to belive "Cash is King" we got out of debt with Dave Ramsey

[ILovemyBoys23]

Dec. 2, 2008 at 3:02 PM

We are trying to be debt free but it's hard on one income and no one hiring. I have been looking for a job forever now with no luck. I just have to keep my faith in God. When my husband got his settlement from his motorcycle accident we paid off about 2/5 cc he had. We have my truck we are paying on and his motorcycle. We have realized that we don't need two vehicles (at least not two for us to pay on) so my husband is getting rid of his bike and my little sister is giving us her Jetta. There are some things we just don't need and that has helped us to save money. It's still hard simply because we are on one income but things will get better.

[Melissa823]

Dec. 7, 2008 at 2:15 PM We are doing Dave Ramsey's plan too! We hope to be debt free but the house by 2009. What a great ministry and plan he has. I'm so grateful we found him. I HATE DEBT! :)

[KristiS11384]

Dec. 7, 2008 at 2:19 PM

Well that other post specifically asked how much Credit card debt you have, so in the case of THAT particular post it's not necessarily that people have a different idea of what debt is, but rather were answering the specific question that was asked.