How much do you put toward debt each month?

**Bal.Leona** · 03-17-2011, 11:10 AM

I make about 60k/year and pay about 220/month. However, my only debt is a 10.5k car loan with 4 years left at 0%, so it doesn't make much sense for me to pay it off early. If I had more debt, I'd probably be putting my current Roth contribution amount towards debt repayment, and possibly my EF savings as well (I have about 4 months saved currently) so it would be closer to 600-800/month at least.

**disneysteve** · 03-17-2011, 12:13 PM

How much people pay on debt doesn't really tell you anything about how they are doing.

Person A
Earns 100K
Pays 1K/month on debt

Person B
Earns 100K
Pays $500/month on debt

What does that mean? Is person B doing better or worse than person A? No way to know with just that info. One person may have more or less debt than the other. One may have a 0% loan or a 29.99% credit card. One may have 6 kids or 3 kids or no kids.

What were you hoping to learn by getting answers to your question?

Personally, our only debt is our mortgage. In addition to the scheduled payment, we pay an additional amount that varies but averages between $1,000 and $1,200/month. We earn about 125K.

**creditcardfree** · 03-17-2011, 12:22 PM

Our only debt is our mortgage.We aren't paying it down early because of our employment situation. We currently save 57% of our income. I know. I'm even surprised at the percentage! It looks like 20% of gross is to retirement and college funds. The rest is being saved for a new to us truck purchase in a couple months. We are grossing just over $100K.

**hausfrau** · 03-17-2011, 12:59 PM

Originally posted by disneysteve View Post

What were you hoping to learn by getting answers to your question?

I am just being nosey

**DebbieL** · 03-18-2011, 09:55 AM

We don't have any debt now, but when we did we paid it down very aggressively. We make just under 8K per month, which nets us approximately 6K monthly (medical insurance and a small retirement amount comes directly off DH's cheques). When we had debt I was usually putting at least 1K per month towards the payment, and sometimes more. I just don't like debt and find myself paying it off quickly. We are hoping to never have debt again (and we never had a debt problem, we just don't like to be indebted to anyone).

**Frugal** · 03-18-2011, 10:36 AM

I have student loan debt, and a mortgage. I like to try to put as much towards the principal as possible.

**littleroc02us** · 03-21-2011, 06:22 AM

I don't have any debt, that's the sign IMO of how someone is doing financially.. We are paying off our mortgage as we speak, but that's a 10 year plan right now. We save up cash and pay for large ticket items that way.

**khosta** · 03-21-2011, 07:49 AM

I have a student loan and a CC bill - I always pay on time and try to pay a little more than the posted amount due!

**DebbieL** · 03-21-2011, 11:00 AM

I always find it interesting that a lot of people don't consider their mortgage a debt (and this is a lot of people who think that way). They'll say they have no debt, but they do have a mortgage. It's all debt to me. Maybe I'm particularly sensitive to the mortgage debt issue because we are in an extreme housing bubble where I live and average houses (think post WW11 ugly boxes) are going for over $600k here, while average household (not individual) incomes are only around 68K or so. The people who have bought in recent years here will soon find out that their mortgages are indeed debt once this stupid bubble bursts (which I personally can't wait to happen). I wish this whole insanity had never happened. Back in 2001 those same houses were around 200-250K, which I thought was still outrageously expensive for what they are.

**NolaP** · 03-21-2011, 11:04 AM

All I have at the moment is under $1000 on a credit card, and I'm paying around $300 per month on it so it should be paid off soon. Then no money to debt!

**Bob B.** · 03-22-2011, 05:57 AM

I pay $1,410 per month toward debt repayment. My income is $55k/yr.

**littleroc02us** · 03-22-2011, 06:49 AM

Originally posted by DebbieL View Post

I always find it interesting that a lot of people don't consider their mortgage a debt (and this is a lot of people who think that way). They'll say they have no debt, but they do have a mortgage. It's all debt to me. Maybe I'm particularly sensitive to the mortgage debt issue because we are in an extreme housing bubble where I live and average houses (think post WW11 ugly boxes) are going for over $600k here, while average household (not individual) incomes are only around 68K or so. The people who have bought in recent years here will soon find out that their mortgages are indeed debt once this stupid bubble bursts (which I personally can't wait to happen). I wish this whole insanity had never happened. Back in 2001 those same houses were around 200-250K, which I thought was still outrageously expensive for what they are.

I follow the Dave Ramsey plan and he considers any debt less then 50% of your income regular debt. The mortgage is debt but is taken care of later in his baby steps. That is something my wife and I are working on eliminating. The point is that I have tons of disposable cash to reinvest and save due to no revolving debt.

**Ima saver** · 03-22-2011, 10:09 AM

I have no debt. (Don't tell my husband) I also paid off my home when I was 32.

**EconoMutt** · 03-22-2011, 01:51 PM

We normally earmark $1,000 per month for debt repayment.
We are working on our last loan. It's a $12,000 car loan.

How much do you put toward debt each month?