What's your Debt Story? | Personal Finance & Lifestyle | Yakezie Forums

Jason

Bingo, bango!  Unsecured debit is flexible, secured isn't.  Lose your credit score, not your home and wages. ;)

I carry balances all the time on the business end.  A little bit of liquidity is nice, and when it isn't liquidity, it's leverage.  As far as I'm concerned, BT offers at 0% for a year with a 3% fee (I hate how rare these are getting!) are the best deal since sliced bread.  As such, I usually open one line each year, max it out, and then pay only the minimum until the last month.  Then I do it all over again.

Obviously it's not the preferred method, but it definitely helps bridging out a net-30, 60, 90 income cycle.  Plus, when it's not all used it can be applied toward leverage.  I think one person who gets this right is TFB; surprised he hasn't chimed in yet.

I am comfortable with debt as long as there is a plan to cover it. I am just finishing paying a line of credit for renovations. Aside from a mortgage and a car loan, all other loan I take are meant to generate income. 

7% interest is quite high … My mortgage rate is currently 2.4% (Variable – .6% up in Canada).

In my opinion, credit card debt are usually an indicator of bad finance or lack of knowledge on borrowing options. You should do what you can to minimize interests. Negotiating for better rates is sometimes as good as saving more money or making extra payments.

I have about 29k right now. $2200 with 19% and $4500 on another with 14.% interest and the last one is about $22000 with 4.5%

My plan right now is to tackle the first two aggressively as I hate the feeling of them being there. I just finished off paying my car loan of $15000 in 3 years so I am super happy about that.

I'm pretty much down to just my student loan debt. I finish school in December then can focus on paying those suckers off! Right now I'm just paying the interest plus a little principle, but it's not as much as I'd like. My goal is to be completely debt free by 2018 – I'm realistic (minus any mortgage I might decide to take on.)

I have a page on my blog dedicated to how I paid off $14K in credit card debt in 1 year.  I basically worked as much as I possibly could, and I sought out part-time positions that provided additional perks such as housing included, etc.  I now am working furiously on paying off my student loans and the first portion of my mortgage. 

Since I paid off my credit cards, I have not carried a balance.  I track my spending and budget for everything. 

I've also learned the power of the word "no," and I exercise my right to say it quite liberally now–this is a HUGE accomplishment for me b/c I used to just charge things I couldn't afford instead of telling someone I couldn't go out to eat/on vacation/shopping/etc.

I was bad with debt in college. Now I'm working to pay it all off. Finally finished off Discover in December. I'm applying all of my side income towards towards my remaining credit card; I hope to have the remaining $5000 paid off by the end of the year. After that, there is the loan I got to pay off the deductible from my surgury last year, and $33,000 worth of student loans. By the time I get all that paid off, we should be pretty close to having the mortgage paid off and will then be debt free.

As far as current credit cards, my wife has one, but usually pays it off the same day as using it, and always by the end of the billing cycle.

I have about $20k in student loan debt that I'm not too eager to pay down.  The interest rate is only 3.5% and most of the interest is tax deductible each year.  When compared to the rate I'm earning in my brokerage account, I'd be losing money if I paid down the debt as opposed to investing the money.  It's all relative.

Hello, Yakezie community, this is my first post in these here corners.

I've wrangled the debt monster, to the tune of over $15,000. Looking back.. eek, those days were pretty horrible. (Daily Ramen, anyone?) But once I stopped the bleeding by not accumulating more debt, I did manage to pay off the balance within two years.  I was absolutely livid that a car loan was suddenly hanging over my head like that, and used sheer anger as my determination point to shovel on through it.

Nothing compares to writing that last check out and knowing your money is once again yours.

Now if only savings interest rates would stop being so pitiful. Online savings accounts had nearly 6% rates a few years back, anyone remember?