Debt stories on I Will Teach You to be Rich
Ramit solicited stories about debt from his readers yesterday. School loans and consumer debt racked up while in college seem to be the way most people first got themselves into debt. Some talk about crawling out from under that debt to become obsessive with their finances. Others are still plugging away, making minimum payments and hoping for the best.
It is interesting to read over what others are going through as they learn to handle debt and crawl out from under the debt load they already have. For some, this will be something they have to deal with for the rest of their lives. For others, it won’t take nearly so long.
A few highlights after the jump.
This one looks a bit familiar:
I am in law school. By the time I graduate, I will have approximately $140k of undergraduate and law school loans at about 5% interest.
This one is equally interesting. That’s a lot of unsecured consumer debt!
28 years old
married
combined income: ~$150k
live in NYC
credit cards: $35,000
car loan: $26,000
personal bank loans: $15,000
Our debt is my single most frequent concern.
My wife and I are finally starting to tackle our debt, but it has taken us quite a while to get started. The first step was making some extra $$ (we make about double now what we did a year ago). The second step was acknowledging that we actually had a problem with spending.
Now, we’re trying to restructure our debt and plan a reasonable monthly budget to pay it off.
All so that we can hopefully save up some $$ for a down payment on a house, and be in way bigger debt!
If you think that was a lot of debt, how about $300,000 at 23?
I am 23. I have over 300K in unsecured debt. Crazy right?
I got into some really bad investing habit (ie, forex trading), and over three years I made some huge mistakes. I have a small business that I used to get more funding for my trading addiction.
I finally started to come to grips with everything a few months ago. It’s been pretty hard, to say the least. My business brings in around 7K a month, but my expenses are still around 9K a month at the moment with all the debt payments.
I have a house that I am short selling, hopefully that will be going through soon. You can read my journal at: http://www.debtkid.com
