Debt-free?

fire2029 said:
Who here is debt-free? (Home loans, car loans, credit card all count as debt for this discussion)

Question edited - as hardly anyone is debt free.
If you are not debt-free, how many years away from being debt free are you?
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Does it count when I am debt free because the house (and home loan) is in my wife's name ? :laugh:
 
31 now, only debt is bond. Plan is to finish that before 35.

I don't waste my money I owe no one anything, I don't buy stuff I don't need and the nest egg lives in the flexibond killing the bond even faster!
 
Completely debt free besides a CC limited to the total of my monthly card swipes and is fully paid up every month for the extra eBucks earn.
 
Cius said:
Nice. My bond took 8 and a half years. Would have been sooner but we had crazy medical expenses crop up from about 3 years back pushing back a lot of stuff. Scary thing is I thought post my debt being cleared I would be in a position to save most of what I was paying on the bond. Fact is with inflation outstripping my salary increases I am barely able to save half my old bond amount. Not sure where I would be this year financially if I still had that bond repayment as the timing of paying it out kind of bailed my budget out in a big way.
Click to expand...

Eish. Sorry to hear that, but at least it’s a net positive. I was fortunate to be in a low inflation country, so my average income increases have greatly exceeded inflation.

The house (in Cape Town) was a tough situation, since I got caught in the time where interest spiked to 17.5%, and could barely pay it.
 
Far, as soon as I get close to pay of my CC, I go and spend again. I think I have a disease.
Help me please ;)
 
House and car. Both of which I pay at least 20% extra on. That is the extent of my debt.
 
When I was 30 years old I was in a fair amount of debt and decided to start my own business 3 years later I had everything but 200k left on my on my bond.

One pretty expensive divorce later I owe 600k on my house but I have expanded my business a considerable amount this year.

I live a huge amount below my means, my workers drive better cars then I do and people laugh when I tell them how much I spend on groceries.
 
Technically yes but only temporarily.

"Technically" because my bond is still open with an outstanding balance of R20k but I'm keeping it there on purpose to keep the access bond open but I have much more than that sitting in a money market account so I could kill it at any time.

Temporarily because I want to buy a house (currently have an apartment) in the next year or two and it's likely that I'm going to need a bond for at least some part of the house.
 
Completely debt free. No property and drive a 10 year old car and live a cheap but comfortable life.
 
Still keeping my bond ticking over with about 1k left owing in case I need to max it out again If I get a bigger place/new car. Otherwise debt free.
 
fire2029 said:
Who here is debt-free? (Home loans, car loans, credit card all count as debt for this discussion)

Question edited - as hardly anyone is debt free.
If you are not debt-free, how many years away from being debt free are you?
Click to expand...
Probably never.
I think I will always leverage debt (i.e the bank's money) to try make money for myself.
I currently have a property that I rent out, and once that's paid down enough I'll get another, and another, and so on.
But there isn't really a compelling reason not to finance these properties - I can then use any cash I have for other investment purposes that hopefully yield more than the interest I'm paying on my bonds.
 
Perhaps for those that rent, but say they debt free, rentals should be considered debt? You have a non-ending commitment to pay for somewhere to live, and that generally goes up every year.
 
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