To Whom Do You Owe Money?
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| Sat, 01-29-2005 - 10:20pm |
I'm just curious who everyone owes money to, in what proportions, and how you feel about your creditors.
I owe somewhere around 80% of my unsecured debt to my dad.
About 10% to Chase (because of a 0% balance transfer offer--previously owed to two other cards, a Sears MC, and a Discover Card)
Remaining 10% to a credit line with a local bank.
Then there is a loan against my car which is roughly the same as what I owe to Chase and my local bank combined. That loan is held by my credit union.
And then the mortgage is owed to the same local bank that holds our credit line.
I'm actually pretty happy with all my creditors right now. My dad, of course, has been nothing but good to us. The Chase card has been hassle-free, including waiving a late fee and rate hike due to an inadvertent late payment on my part. The local bank has always treated us well, and I *LOVE* our credit union (USAA for those of you who have access to it--never had such a consistently spectacular experience with any other one company).
Of course, it wasn't always so--when we were up to our ears in debt, we had lots of creditors who treated us abysmally. It was only through hard work and time that we have been able to reach a point where we have some control over who our creditors are, and of course we chose those who treated us well even when we were down and out.
Heather

We owe $17K+ to our 2nd mortgage company, which is also our bank, and they have been wonderful in our dealings with them.
We owe 9700 to our credit card, which is also with our bank.
We owe 1788 to my son's former karate school. We have a signed contract with his former school. However, his former teacher threatened the kids with physical harm, and he and I had a big ol' fight in his office after that. As a result, he offered me a deal where I could take my son to a different school (which I LOVE! I should have gone here initially!!) but still pay him. I guess he has a deal with the school we currently go to where they work out some sort of payment transfer between them. So in this case, I don't like the creditor that I owe (and I hope all his schools go out of business...2 of the four already have!), but I love love love the new school that this tuition payment allows us to attend now. :-D
So all in all, I feel pretty good about our debt load right now. We have some breathing room for emergencies, and if not needed, that extra money each month can go towards our debt. :-D
Pat
Here is how my debt works out:
69% for student loans, graduated payment program so my payment is low, just reconsolidated and got a pretty low rate, hope to have paid off prior to retirement.
18% for my new car loan. I put some money down ($1,000 from savings, $2,000 on a credit card) plus had my trade in and got a great rate, so my payment is only $203 per month. I'm really happy about that. I was able to cut $80-100 out of my monthly budget which really helped me be able to fit the car payment in.
9% is previous overspending that is sitting on a new BofA card at 0% for 2005. I have a plan to have this paid off by December. But I think what I'm going to do instead is put the money in savings. That way at the end of the year I can either pay the card off, or leave the money in savings and transfer it to another 0% card. The benefit of keeping the money in savings is I will have it when I want to buy a home in the summer of 2006. I am going to try to buy something with as little down as I can, but with this plan I should have at least $10k in savings by that time. If I can get into a home for $4k, I can pay the card off completely then, but if not, I can get into a home and then work on a new debt repayment plan, either way I don't plan to be paying any interest on this debt. I think it will be easier to buy something with very little down if I can say, well I have the money in the bank but I'd rather not use it... it sounds better than I don't have the money.
3% is the $2,000 down payment for my car that is on my Chase card. It looks like my tax return will be just over $2,000, so this will be paid off soon. I have an 11% rate on my Chase which I don't like, so I am happy I can pay this off (and even if my tax return wasn't enough, this would have been paid by April anyway).
1% is for a new mattress I bought my dd. It's at zero percent interest and will be paid off in a couple months, quite a while before the zero interest period ends.
I'm not mathematically inclined enough to figure out the percentages, but I'll just give it to you this way:
Our mortgage is with Chase( no problems with them)~ $47K @ 7.25%
SUV loan is with DH's credit union (love them!)~ $16K @ 3.75%
Our 2 student loans~ mine $3500 @ 4.17% (will pay off by July/Aug) DH's $9500 @ 4.17%
GM card(0% until March)~ $3800 will probably have to do another transfer, I don't think I'll be able to pay it off by March 31. Prob. by April 31. We have to use our income tax for roof, so can't apply that unless it's higher than I expect.
Furniture Loan- $650 @ o% until October. I will pay that off as soon as GM is paid off (April/May)
We do not ever borrow or lend money anymore to family or friends (bad experience). The only occassion is when my mom and I go shopping and there's a discount if you charge it with their cc. I don't have store charge cards (just Old Navy~ no balance)so I just pay her back when the bill comes in if I want anything.
She pays everything off in full and has NO debt- in fact they just paid off their mortgage. You'd think I'd be as good with money as they are??!!! BTW, my dad is on disability and mom only works 3 days/week---amazing!!
Good Post Heather! Nicki :)
About 50% of our debt is to DH student loan (35%) and my student loan (15%). I think the highest in interested paid is 3.25 for me adn 2.9 for DH. These will be the last loans we pay, due to tax deductible interest and loan forgiveness at death (not that we plan to die soon!)
Next is old CC debt that was just surfed to Citibank at 0% (from another 0% card). That is about 35% of the total.
Our target debt is my car which is at 4.95% and is about 15% of the total.
I'm pleased or indifferent with all of our creditors. DH hates his student loan lender, but he just hates calling them.
Gidget
I decided to wait until I had done the end of the month numbers, so...
With the house, our total debt is $63,612.00.
Broken down, it looks like:
Credit Cards: $6596 -All on 0%-10.3% of total
Blazer: $4081- 10.25%-6.4%
Loan from my Dad- 0%-$5185-8.1%
House: $47,800 -0%(My mom holds the mortgage, that's how we got the good rate!)-75%.
I also ran the numbers without the house just because I was curious.
Total Non-house debt: $15,812.00
Credit Cards- 41.7% (wow)
Blazer- 25.8%
Dad- 32.8%
Huh. I think I like the first way better, LOL!
I also know we'll have student loans to add to the mix by the time we're done with school, but we're going to knock most of this other debt out this year to get ready for them.
I don't have a relationship with the creditors-well, except my Mom. My dad died 8 years ago, but even though my mom doesn't care if I pay back that loan, *I* care. The credit card companies mean doodly to me-I surf balances when I have to in order to take care of us. Our Blazer note is held by the bank here in town that we bank at, and I know most of the people there (small town...)
It's all just the cost of doing business, nothing to lose sleep over anymore.
Lisa
Well, I couldn't tell you in percentages, but I'd say about 99% of our income goes to debt.