Do you know anyone who doesn’t have/ hasn’t ever had any debt?

Only debt was mortgage - thank goodness, long ago paid off. I do pay for most things by credit card, saves me carrying cash, keep a little note book in which I list every time I make a payment on that card, and it is paid in full each month.
Purchased some new furniture recently, and company offered four years interest free credit - seemed silly not to take advantage of this, although I had got the full amount in my savings. When I signed the forms I could feel my stomach curdling as it was so frightening for me to be in debt in this way - but I know I have enough cash to cover the full amount if necessary.
Back in the late1950's I was working and desperately wanted to buy myself a tape recorder and asked my Dad if he would sign for me to have that on Hire Purchase. I did have enough in my post office savings account but did not want to use that - he agreed - but only if I handed over that savings account book to him, to keep until the HP was fully paid off.
I was taught by my parents to save and then purchase. Tried to teach my own children that - and was pretty successful until they went off to Uni when the government was telling them to get into debt!!! Thanks goodness, they have all paid off those debts now - but now worry about how g.children will cope - even if they stay living at home -Uni fees alone are going to mean they will be some thirty grand plus in debt when they start their independent lives.

My mum would be almost in tears, really distressed if she ever got a red bill.
Only because she had forgotten to pay it, because she always had the money put by.

I'm glad I'm more relaxed than that.

On the other hand, my parents worried about our mortgage because it was so large compared with what they had borrowed and our last mortgage was 10 times the size of our first mortgage - but a much smaller percentage of our income at the time.

We still have a small mortgage, and when I compare our repayments with the amounts our adult children are paying I get worried, because what happens if one of them loses their job?
They won't be able to retire for years.

I agree Monica that your examples of debt for the roof over your head or the means to keep your job are things that are common to most of us.

However the people I know who are in a great deal of debt have so much more than that and have very little to show for it although their household income has always been higher than ours. I couldn’t enjoy luxury holidays/weekends away or a shopping spree with the girls if it meant putting it all on a credit card and paying for it over the next 2 years. The thrill of those things would have worn off before before it was paid off!

I said previously that I thought it was generational and I’m sure younger people see absolutely no problem with it so each to their own.

I think we are all getting over virtuous about never having borrowed money. I can see no reason why debt, judiciously taken out should be any mark of shame.

Many people on GN have had mortgages and have at various times taken out car loans or home improvement loans after carefully working out their finances and how to repay it.

Our first house cost £6,000 with a £5,500 mortgage. If we had virtuously stayed in a rented flat and carefully saved our pennies, we could, I suppose, in 10 years or so have saved the £5,500 - except by then the the house was selling at £15,000. The house now sells for over £250,000 - and we would probably still be saving.

If your car breaks down irreparably, and you need it for work, you could, of course, give up your job and stay home until you have saved enough to buy a new one - although without a job ......., or you could buy a sensible not over-expensive car with a bank loan and keep your job and possibly win promotion. Many a successful business has been based on an initial loan from a friend or family member.

Yes, in an entirely cash society, where lower level jobs, in particular were insecure and illness could impoverish a family overnight and many lived hand to mouth most of the time, then care and caution over money was essential but life is more complex now.

I am sure when money first came in people warned about using coins instead of bartering your good. What good are bits of metal instead of swapping your cows milk for some eggs? Who can guarantee that they will be accepted by the people in the next village who might have honey available.

Reckless debt is never a good thing but judicious debt? No problems with it.

In the days of previous generations there wasn't so much money about, so the banks etc weren't so generous with lending. Even building societies are a fairly recent invention.
There was only the odd money-lender who charged exorbitant interest rates.

I have never had any debts. We saved until we could buy a house and had what we could afford.

Nowadays I have a nice new car and a lovely bungalow ( detached , rural, large large garden - in fact a field) . Its all paid for and money in the bank for the rainy day.

Maybe you need to aske the question the other way round - who has loads of debt? My step brother is always in debt. He has always been in debt. When I was younger he sued to borrow money from me to pay back weekly but come his birthday it was rarely paid and I would write the debt off. Probably a mistake but....

He has a very spendthrift want it all now attitude to all things. He works but he spends all of it. he doesn't have a house ( did live with his now ex wife in her house but from what I gather she too is in debt up to her eyes). he lives rent free with my dad . What happens when he dies I don't know. I doubt brother will be able to afford to pay the house overheads given his attitude to money.

He isn't young, he is mid fifties.

The big difference between us is that when I was little I pretty well lived in abject poverty . My mother always claimed she had no money ( it was a lie by the way) and I had few toys and almost nothing beyond a school uniform and a Sunday best dress.

I swore I would save my money and not ever live like that again.

My brother had a different life. Anything he wanted as a kid he got. He only had to ask. he was bought a car, taught to drive , debts always cleared for him and still it goes on. I paid for my own car. Paid for my driving lessons. I was not the favoured child!

I have no credit cards and no debts. I didn’t think this was unusual in somebody old.

My dear Father opened a business in 1964 with money he had saved by working long hours.
The business never had a bank loan or an overdraft and employed approximately ten people within a few years of him opening.
He went into the office every day until he was 85 and the business is still being run by family today although unfortunately my Dear old Dad died last year at 92.

For us, the day we felt release was when DH's job was in jeopardy and we looked in the paper and saw that if we had to sell the house we were living in, we would have enough equity left to buy a much smaller, but adequate home, for the family for cash, no mortgage.

DH's parents refused to buy a house as they didn't want a mortgage and to be in debt. We kept trying to point out that they were always in debt to their landlord and if they didn't pay their rent they would be thrown out..... We were obviously in debt for most of a married life with a big mortgage to pay, but my goodness, didn't we feel proud the day we went into the building society and paid the remaining balance....

I think part of good financial management is knowing how to handle debt. No, I am not talking about paying off huge debts, but when a washing machine breaks down and you do not have enough money to go out and pay cash for a new one, reckoning how much you can pay and if you can risk spreading the cost over 3 or 6 months on your credit card.

When the children were young and money was tight, we often made decisions like this. We did this over domestic appliances, cars, DH needed one for work, even car repairs. Each time the need arose we considered the options.

Some times we would dip into savings instead, but we always felt it was more necessary to keep savings intact and regular saving continuing and pay interest on necessary purchases in order to buy them from income over a several months.

In a far more financially complicated age. what and what is not debt and working out the best way to balance them, is just as virtuous than just never being in debt.

Apat from the mortgage, paid off long ago, no.

I used the word I used (skiver) partly tongue in cheek and partly because given how so many women, myself among them did all the things she would have done, no day nursery, well three mornings at Pre-school playgroup, no domestic staff, proper cooked meals and in my case a DH whose job meant that often I effectively headed a one parent family, so handling all the family finance, house sales and moves, gardening etc.

I am not judging her and finding her wanting, if that is the life style she chose that is fine. But I see absolutely no reason why she should be proud of it, and as she is, it rather suggests that she is proud because, as she perceives it, she has had such an easy life compared with other women. Hence my use of the word skiving.

Personally, her choice of life style would be my idea of hell.

Debt is a part of modern life these days isn't it?

There is nothing wrong with, say, credit card debt providing it is paid off IN FULL (as Martin Lewis would say!) each month.

The problem comes of course when people maybe get a bit carried away and then find they can't afford to pay it off monthly.

As it is a vital life skill, I firmly believe that personal finance should be taught in schools.

Surely it would be far more beneficial to schoolchildren than, for instance, learning about all these different (daft?) religions.

Disagree Monica, I listed 3 different jobs: childcare, cleaning and catering which this woman did without pay - as we all did to varying degrees depending on whatever hours we worked outside the home and what help we had within. A skiver she wasn’t on that basis alone. Why can’t we be different without being judged and found wanting?

I assume she brought up her own children as opposed to putting them in day nursery or a nanny, did her own cleaning as opposed to having a cleaner and cooked all the meals which would probably be delicious using farm produce! I call all of that work, albeit unpaid and by all accounts unappreciated by so many people these days.

A lot of us did all that and more and worked, so she is actually a skiver.

She didn't have a nanny but I'm sure she had a cleaner, and was great at cooking and entertaining. Yes, I suppose she was the perfect 50's housewife but in the 1980's and 90's.

I assume she brought up her own children as opposed to putting them in day nursery or a nanny, did her own cleaning as opposed to having a cleaner and cooked all the meals which would probably be delicious using farm produce! I call all of that work, albeit unpaid and by all accounts unappreciated by so many people these days.

Not quite the same thing but I do know someone who is quite proud of the fact that she has never had a job - which I presume also means not debt. She left school and spent the summer handing around the marina in the coastal town she lived in, met her husband to be, a local farmers son (at the time) went to live with him in one of the farm cottages, had three children ( got married somewhere along the way) and has done nothing by way of paid work ever! She didn't even do anything to do with the farm, which was very large and generated a good income before they sold it and retired in their late 50's.

It is a bit of a conversation stopped when you meet her for the first time and she announces she has never worked, as she is incredibly proud of the fact. It hasn't been a bad plan for her as she is much loved by all her family and has plenty of time to look after her grandchildren.

Affordable debt is a totally different thing, we still have a small mortgage for a few more years and use credit cards and overdrafts when we feel the need, no one ever comes knocking on our door to break our knee caps for non repayment!

We do save for most things but sometimes I just don’t want to wait until tomorrow to have what I want today, nothing wrong with that in my eyes, we pay what we need to when we need to.
I grew up in a very frugal household, every penny was saved for retirement then my mum died at 60 and never got to enjoy it, my dad has a very different view now and so wishes they had enjoyed the money while she was alive.

My adult children are all careful with money, but have differing financial circumstances. When my older daughter had to take extended maternity leave due to her baby being born extremely prematurely my younger daughter immediately made her a gift of her substantial savings - neither girl has any debts, but the younger daughter has just increased her mortgage to extend her (already huge) house. My sons are both in their late 20's and both have good jobs and career prospects; my youngest son lives hand to mouth and we have just had a discussion about him getting a credit card so that he can establish a credit history. My older son is an accountant and every month he produces his 'red box' (aspirations to be chancellor one day?) and has a financial discussion with his wife. My children were brought up with the financial mantra to 'save (what you can), give (a little) and spend (what you must)'.

Both AC are very careful with money. DD seems to have it hard wired in. The father of DDiL died when she was very small and although her mother got a dependents income from his pension, money was tight when she and her sister were small and she is equally careful so son, who is a worrier anyway, follows suite.

Life is more complex now. In the past most people had running accounts with the milkman, baker, grocer, which they settled at the end of each week or month. Now we use less cash and put things on a credit card and clear it at the end of the month.

It is all very well to say save for a car, but if you need it for work and it suddenly needs replacing because of breakdown or damage, then you can't tell your employer that you will not be in for work for six months until you have saved enough for a replacement. Not every place of work is accessible by public transport.

oldgimmer1
It's 6 years.