There was a three-month period where my husband was waiting for a job that kept having its start-date moved back. It was going to be at a high salary, so we just started buying things. Ended up down $5,500. I cannot resist a high-quality pair of shoes on super-sale. I cannot. Clothes and eating out. partying like a rock star with the salary of a burger-flipper never did. I'm a "convenience user" (I pay my balance off every month) The sad thing is that I hardly even remember. Living, I guess you'd call it, cost $4100 For some reason, a credit card company gave me a $10,000 dollar limit on my very first card. I immediately bought a DVD player--it was 1996 so it was around $700--then I proceeded to amass a DVD collection that rivaled the local Blockbuster. I have since paid off the debt and since the DVD format has managed to last a whole decade feel that my purchases were justified--except for the regular editions of movies that have since come out with super director's editions. I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune once this Blue Ray ackamarackus takes over. Sadly, unlike you, Rob, I had to turn to my parents for help to get out from Visa's thumb. Congrats on being responsible enough to pay off your own debt. Oh, and great job on 20/20. Dave $1900 - remainder of a car loan and an iPod I never accumulated credit card debt. My parents always said not to buy something unless you had the money saved up. $1200 total $500 insurance deductible after backing into a fire hydrant $300 "4TH-5TH YR Advanced Exchange, TS and Parts with SystemSat" on my laptop $389 gas, groceries and clothes $11 lunch at Panera bread It was those damn rice crispy treats that came pre-made. Man those are addicting. books, beer, and not having health insurance i needed horse meat for food... i got 10,000 dollars in debt, but man, all those horses were worth it! $72,000 on multiple cards. This from furnishing my new house and starting an MLM business. A few years after college was when my credit card debt maxed out... at around $12,000. (I also had $15,000 in student loans.) I got it by spending more money than I was making; I had a decent job, but I was living beyond my means. Some of the biggest items that caused this debt: three computers (over eight years), a $900 camcorder (which broke into many small pieces in an accident), an $800 brake job on a car to get it to pass state inspection (even though it only lasted one more year after that)... and another used car, paid for with one of those checks that comes with your credit card statement. Also cigarettes caused thousands of dollars of credit card debt; fortunately, I quit smoking three years ago. The good news is that not only am I now down to $3,000 in overall debt, but I'm on track to have it all paid off by November 2006. Not working while in school and being a car owner. About $6000 at 5.9%. unemployment/lazyness-&1600 $2500 - tires for my truck, medication (pre-health insurance), and a cruise to Alaska That's my story! Except I'm still in college. And my birthday is October 14th, if that means anything. Credit Card debt: $500 - University expenses... you know, food, books etc. Bank Overdraft: $1000 - University expenses... again... Student Loan: $40000 - Bachelor of Science in Biology... Thank you University of Auckland. Hire purchase: less then $200 - Will be paid of in 2 weeks on my next pay day :) Luckily my overdraft is interest free and New Zealand no longer has interest on student loans (because prior to this the compulsory repayments wern't covering the interest being charged) Australian HECS University fees, $26,000 (AUS) Despite paying for 4 years of University on my own, I've never carried a cent of credit card debt. I don't understand how people who do can look themselves in the mirror in the morning. I don't have a credit card. *blink* I'm still in the process of doing it, by going to college. HOORAY! I didn't. You look weird in that photo. marijuana, taquitos, and cheese sauce... $2500 Buying crap off of ebay. So addictive! $2000 I'm 24 and I don't have a credit card. However I am £12,000 in debt because of my Student Loan. For me it was a computer combined with several months of unemployment after college, totaling $3000 Err... About £5,000. Some of which is interest free, which is nice. Mainly on living expenses over university, mostly in the last year. $8000, and I took a semester off and lived in New Zealand for 8 months... It was ABSOLUTLY worth it. I got married to it. On November 27th, 2004 I married $15,472 of credit card debt. It's now $8,754. w.kone Debt is for suckers! I've never had a credit card so I've never had the debt. I was overdrawn once though: the purchase that tipped me over the edge was a copy of Therapy?'s single "Screamager" on pink vinyl. It was worth it. My debt (which is now paid in full) was completely self-inflicted by discretionary spending. I think this is the reason for most people's big credit card balances, and most people won't admit it. Do you really need a 42" plasma TV? Do you really need that fancy SUV? (which has high monthly payments, so more of your other spending has to go on your credit card). Etc, etc.. I reigned in my debt (which approached $10,000 at one point) by just cutting out the fluff, and living within my means. My first sales job out of college required that I put tons of miles on my car, and my mileage reimbursement checks were slow to arrive. My plan was to pay for the gas with a credit card, and when the reimbursement checks arrived I would apply them to my credit card. However, because young and stupid (mostly stupid) I treated the reimbursement checks like found money and used it on babes and beer. I got about $3500 deep before I figured out that it couldn't continue. About £2,000 ($3,700) due to techno-lust :-) Rob, I want to see the other people's answers so I am entering this lonelt sentence. Thanks for opening up this line of discussion! almost 7k myself, and halfway through a four year college course. A large chunk isn't from college though... it's from getting started in DJing! (vinyl's frikkin expensive!) I have never gone into debt. I only ever charged what I could afford, because I thought that was all I was "allowed" to do. Once I realized I could go "over," the skill not too was deeply ingrained. Z Millions of dollars in heroin and upper-class hookers. We racked up over $30,000 in consumer debt when we first got married. We don't use credit cards or borrow money, except for a mortgage, at all anymore. We pay cash for our cars too and it's the best feeling. And I know the date that I paid our last debt too: February 17th! We love being debt free! How? I got married. How high? $9000 on the cards I know about. Stuff, divorce costs, more stuff, vacations, WoW subscription, even more stuff. I could not possibly remember where all my debt began. :( Same as you, I reckon. It started with a computer, then I added in general living expenses. Then that cute girl at Target got me to apply for another card. Then I needed another computer... Now I'm up to about four grand. I'm paying one fifty a month, but I don't think it's actually going down. I have about $3000 in emergency dental work I had to put on my credit card due to lack of funds. And that was with insurance. The new refridgerator in my new house might have added a few hundred, too...and the new area rugs and new carpet cleaner and landscaping equipment. But the dental work was teh bulk of it. Food and gas when I was self employed. 18,000.00 £30000. Teaching snails to speak 15th. Century peasant French. medical bills, since I don't have health insurance - $5000 How did I accumulate all that credit card debt? The Bahamas, baby! The Bahamas! Vacations are expensive! But I eventually got it paid off. Never had it. Junior high economics class scared the shit out of me, and I never had a credit card until my last year of college, and even then I never used it. No longer any more debt, but in the post college years I was upwards of 15k. About $10,000 and I racked it up supporting a deadbeat husband. Thankfully, he's out of the picture now and the amount is slowly going down. Believe me when I say I'll never EVER do that again. I owe about 13,000 in credit card debt. But 5,000 is at 1.9% interest, 6,000 is at 4.9% interest, and 2,000 at 9% that I will pay off in 3-4 months. The 5,000 is left over from grad school. I spent a summer in Italy. Because the interest rate is so low, I pay the minimum each month. The 6,000 is a combination of a computer, a treadmill, 2,000 pounds of terracotta clay, art history books, shoes and coffee. $7,000 on a trip to Europe during college with my two best friends that I couldn't afford among other things. mainly by paying for meals/beer and buying crap I didn't need. I straight up quit paying my credit cards about a year and a half ago. Then I started getting 4 or 5 phone calls a day from bill collectors, but now I only get one every couple of days. I pretty much sent my credit score through a shredder. pussy and beer $7,000 -- renovating a 100-year-old home. That's expensive. digital cameras and taking girls out to eat. 10k I have zero credit card debt, but I do owe 13k skrilla for student loans. Wow. 7k is nothing. I had just gotten out of law school. My fiancee at the time had just been laid off. I was working as a bartender and she as a sales clerk. We both went FAST from two great, well paying jobs, to two minimum wage joke jobs. We were putting everything on a card that we had to. Groceries, gas, RENT. Everything. It was terrible. We are in the process of paying through the nose to get back into good shape and get rid of thsoe cards. We think we can do it in two years. We both now have very good jobs. So here's the current tally: 5 credit cards 31,000 in debt And let's not forget student loans: that's another 50k And obviously the house. but that doesnt' count. But I am proud to say that we haven't charged a single thing in almost a year. So we're definitely going to nail that debt! After college I took a job as a VISTA volunteer (kind of like the American Peace Corps). Because of this vow of poverty ($125 a week was my pay) I was not only able to apply for and receive food stamps, but I was also able to rack up a considerable amount of debt on my credit card. You know, frivolous things like gas, car repairs, clothes, beer, etc. After two years of 'service to America' I bailed out for another low paid job - start-up restaurant owner. I figure during that time I amassed $5-$7000 in debt. If it was not for a small inheritance from a grandparent's estate ($4000) I'd probably be paying it off to this day! These days I keep my CC debt to under $2K and pay it off regularly...usually... I have never had Credit Card debt. I have always paid off my full balance even during college years. Being a golf course caddy allowed me to rack up tons of cash every summer so I never came across the debt problem. $3500 goofing around Boob Job $2500 (mom paid for one boob...THANKS, MOM!) cocaine and hookers - 60,000 No debt at all, I lived cheap and worked whenever I wasn't in class. College, trip to Europe, marriage- $20,000 My credit card debt hit a peak of about $3500, and was a combination of cash advances to pay the rent that my roommate was skipping out on, bus tickets home, and the occasional grocery bill. Drug-addicted Ex. $15,000 My girlfriend dumped me and kicked me out of her house. My unused credit card came in very handy for the drinking problem I was about to develop. We owe The Man somewhere around $10,000, pretty much all of which was racked up in about four months at the end of my wife's medical school. It was the only way we could afford to move for her residency. beer, babes, and broccoli 15000 I have now paid mine off - but I got into it while Renovating a house (any house you can buy for under $30 grand....probably shouldn't be bought!) Women. I have always paid off my credit cards every month. However, I did once have a girlfriend who was the epitome of the irresponsible spender. She applied for all the "student" credit cards, somehow got approved for all of them, and then went on a wild spending spree and maxed them all within about three weeks (clothing, mostly, plus a plane ticket to visit me at school). She then spent the next five years avoiding creditor's nasty phone calls and having her credit rating screwed as she couldn't keep up with the mounting interest payments. Add to this the vast amount of student loans she was accumulating. Last I heard, she still hasn't paid her credit card and student loan debt even though she graduated over 15 years ago. Beware the credit card interest payments!!! none. only spend what you have, foo' Computer hardware... Aquarium stuff. porn.... Actually, I don't pay for porn. The internet is for free porn. Hmm, food too. Currently in debt a few grand. And I'm graduating soon. SLATE of masterslate.org I produced a play for a community theater company, and Violated Max Bialystock's first rule of producing. "Never put your own money in a Show!" But of course, it wasn't really mine, it was Citibank's $2500. Divorce and reckless spending on booze, clothes and charging everything from gas to groceries! About $28,000.00 in total from about 4 different cards. hookers getting married....and moving to a new city. it's been steady hovering right 'round $10K for a couple years now. every time we make progress, something else happens and we have to resort to the ol' cc again. but, 3 years into marriage - starting to see the light! I spent my money doing research for my PhD. I haven't finished yet, but I recently took a student loan and knocked that crap back! Medical Expenses... 3 in the family with asthma and allergies. Even with good health insurance we still average +$700 per month for medical expenses. No end in sight. In response to the guy who bought weed on credit.... What type of drug dealer accepts credit cards? SLATE of masterslate.org no CC debt (I worked), but $100k tuition debt (and counting) College, restoring my pickup truck, traveling, and my wedding. Yep, mostly the wedding. I owe about 3 grand. Mostly on my Office Depot credit card. Thats a new camera and a laptop. I also owe about $300 on my Apple credit card for a macmini. 2,600.00 total credit card debt. 600.00 dog, 500.00 dining room set, 500.00 medical bills, 1,000.00 misc (i.e I don't remember!). $1500 for a bad transmission on a used car i bought 1 month earlier Not too bad, $1600 on $6800 available. It's a college thing. I used to work my ass off and be well employed and it wasn't an issue. Then I office spaced on my job a couple months ago and, not surprisingly, am broke. 0$ Now! Thanks, Dave Ramsey http://www.daveramsey.com Was $17,00 dollars 1 year ago! Food, trips, clothes, golf, you name it. Seth, WV Decided to live on my own during college, then I needed some books and of course food and computer games, etc. Came up with a total of $3300. Almost word for word the same story you tell, except it was about 4 grand, it was January when I mailed my last check, and none of it was for books. Accumulated $30K debt paying tuition and buying useless junk. Took four years to pay off, at $1000 per month. Coulda bought a car for that! Amazon,Ebay, Bath and Bodyworks ,ANY ONLINE STORE!! :) the total is around $2500,between 3 cards. I accumulated the bulk of my credit card debt by putting an emergency flight ("evacuating" under orders from my government from Pakistan after 9/11) on my Visa. I didn't have the money to pay it off when I arrived home. I'm still paying it off now, almost 5 years later. The total was about $5700 at one point. I hardly ever used or use my credit card, so it was all interest payments and trying to pay down the flight. I'm now down to a manageable (ha) $3000. I have zero debt (other than student loans) and I am sworn to keep it that way. I had a crap ass SF landlord who evicted us and took all of our posessions after having to replace everything that we owned we had a lot debt. Not to mention our life looked like an old navy/ikea add. We got out from underneath it with the help of a website that did the math for us. A lot of my friends have huge amounts of credit card debts (one of them has >25,000) just from a purely credit month long trip to Australia. They all ask why I never go out to bars and clubs and spend 200 bucks like them. It's cause I pay cash for everything. NO DEBT!!! I have zero debt (other than student loans) and I am sworn to keep it that way. I had a crap ass SF landlord who evicted us and took all of our posessions after having to replace everything that we owned we had a lot debt. Not to mention our life looked like an old navy/ikea ad. We got out from underneath it with the help of a website that did the math for us. A lot of my friends have huge amounts of credit card debts (one of them has >25,000 just from a purely credit month long trip to Australia). They all ask why I never go out to bars and clubs and spend 200 bucks like them. It's cause I pay cash for everything. NO DEBT!!! I did the student loan method instead of the credit card. Much worse idea. (In Canada) Student loans do not erase your debt after 7 years (like credit cards) - and they can track you through tax returns (even though it is illegal for other companies to do the same) sex, drugs and rock and roll I have no credt card debt... yet. I hope to learn from all of your experience how to avoid it. My wife and I got married and instantly were hit up for all those "free vacation just for watching us tout our wares" things. We bought a very nice set of pots and pans, and thus started our credit balance. (note that even today the pans are great, and were worth what we spent on them - but we shouldn't have spent the moeny on them that early). I was working full time and going to school, and also operating a computer consulting business. I let many of my customers pay for the computer or upgrades when they received it, and between the time I purchased the items and then received payment I was paying interest. It's not bad if everyone pays on time and if all the purchases are small, but when people are getting thousands of dollars of equipment, and not paying until a month or two after I purchase the equipment I started getting a balance just off the interest. I was (am?) not a good business person at that point and the interest alone grew as I wasn't charging my customers enough to cover it after other expenses. It grew. My wonderful wife is great at juggling credit card balances (and the credit card companies love us - we have great credit) so generally we are paying 0% interest on our large balance. A few years ago we had credit card debt of over $17,000. We are now below $8,000 and have a plan to get rid of it completely within this year. Learning how the credit card companies worked, and how to juggle balances saved us thousands of dollars. The biggest annoyance we discovered is that if you transfer a balance to a new 0% credit card, then use the credit card for regular purchases those purchases gain interest at the regular rate, and any payments go to the 0% balance. So let's say you start off with $4,000 at 0%, rack up $2,000 afterwards at 10%, and pay $2,000 within 30 days of the purchases. You now have $2,000 at 0%, and $2,000 at 10%. They've just converted half your 0% balance into a 10% balance! Now that we know we juggle a little differently, and I don't beleive we've paid/accumulated any significant interest on our large credit card balance in a few years. Lazy ex-girlfriends who couldn't hold a job, alcohol, drugs. I ran up the plastic on drinks, eating out, vacations and generally not keeping a budget. When my balance hit $10K, I finally realized that I was supposed to spend LESS than I earned. It took 3 years to pay off. Hope your question inspires people to learn this lesson sooner than I did. Porn, strippers and bad beer. Sigh. Ohmygod...the credit card nazis knew exactly what they were doing sending me a credit card. FREE MONEY!!! or so I thought. Books, eating out and gasoline were my downfall. What a numbnutz I was. One bankruptcy and a Dave Ramsey later, I'm under control and actually saving! I have about $4,000 in credit card debt... mainly from ordering pizza! buying useless shit. i managed to pay off one card that $6,500 thinking i really was gonna get enough frequent flyers miles to fly my ass to iceland, but no... i paid it off and cut it up! currently i've got $2,000 on a card that was mostly moving from the states to the UK. i hope to have it paid off in the next 12 months then i'll work on clearing my husbands credit card debts. as far as college is concerned i still owe in the ballpark of $22,000 for both my undergrad and masters degree. i hate paying those every month and figure i'll be able to pass them on to my children since the dickhead in the white house has totally f*cked our country's economy and interest rates so i'll never get a head... I "accumulated" about $180,000 on the purchase of my house. I guess you could say it's an investment, but I as well am suffering from the pains of interest (almost $800/month!). --Daniel ZERO DOLLARS. I pay it off each month. I buy stuff I can afford, put it on the Discover card, pay it off with the money I saved to pay for the item in advance, and pocket the 1% cash rebate. If I can't afford it I don't buy it. I only have two cards total, and only use the Mastercard when the vendor won't accept Discover. My balance every single month winds up at zero. I had a serious problem with dwarf collecting off the Asian black market. That intrest really accrued while I was in prison, let me tell you. I have always paid my credit card bill every month. Treat it like a check card. Really. If you can'tafford it now, what makes yo think you can afford it, plus interest, later? Well, porn.... glad that is over with, whew $8,000 in traveling around the country! It's all student loans. I have none. :-) college, like 3000 smackers dude. I didnt even graduate. I suck. I currently owe a little under $4K. I had some financial issues in college, including a sick dog with a genetic disease, which racked up some of it. I also bought a new computer. I had wittled it down to nearly nothing when my car needed over $800 worth of repairs (the warranty had just expired). I just got dealt a bad deal, I guess. Are tangents okay? I have never owned a credit card, choosing instead to use either cash or my debit card, which only let you spend money that you ACTUALLY HAVE. Which should be better, right? Except my credit is officially "bad" since I've tried not to dig myself into a hole. Apparently if I ever try to buy a new car or a house, I'm going to forced into getting a card somewhere down the line, lest I look like some kind of unseemly scallawaglette. I don't carry a balance on any of my cards. If you got a student loan, then you'd have student loan debt instead of credit card debt. I have exactly $0 of credit card debt, but because my wife paid for everything with her student loans, I have over $100,000 in student loans, for 4 years of art school! It's about $1000 a month. It's killing us. Poor Rob. Your sad face almost makes me want to send a check your way, just so you can turn that frown upside down. Almost... no debt! College. Now down to about $2500 from $5000 on that blasted card. College. One emergency TV set later and I was hooked on credit. 16k. Outfitting my first apartment, buying utensils, rugs, furniture, etc. But I only managed to go into debt for a couple thousand, and paid it off the next year. Now I never have a balance over $500, and pay it off in full within a month or two. paying for money management seminars What has two thumbs and no credit card debt? This guy. I get one nice thing at a time, and pay it off. I don't make tons of money, but I have some nice stuff. Woo! don't have any, and sure as heck hope to keep it that way I spent all my money falling in love. I blew it all on my heart. I fell in love with good Scotch. Rum and I had a torrid affair. Oh, those cool beer nights under a hot Kansas summer-- it was true love. Bourbon was my passion, vodka was the one I returned to whenever I was hurt. Tequila was my guilty pleasure when I was in the mood to do something very bad. I almost drank myself homeless one summer-- I had this bad habit of starting some nights with a "First Down," slamming 10 yard-glasses of beer. Then I'd buy a round for the bar, leaning across the hardwood and telling Garson "whatever all these people are drinking, put another one in front of them." Those were some fun nights, some terrible mornings. I'm glad I lived those stories, but I am glad they're over. DEBT FREE FOR 15 MONTHS! Currently, $1800, mostly my poor spending on things like clothes and furnishings that I don't really need. It was around $5000 when I finished university, from food, nights out, and 4 months in Italy when I didn't have enough cash for all of my living expenses and travel expenses. Up to $8000... The thing that killed me was when I could start charging food and beer at the grocery store I don't have any. music CDs, travel. max $12,000, now gone. I pay off my credit card every month! Approx 25,000. Started with books in college, progressed to one entire semester of grad school when financial aid was cut off by mistake and the grand finale was starting a business which went bankrupt. Cars. They are expensive to fix... $8500, but paid off now. only -£700.. but i have £3000 of student loan to pay off already, which will hit £9000 by the time i leave university (although there is no interest on those, thank you student loan company) and i'm just 19.. heres to years of crappy jobs to pay back money! a I've never been in debt. I only have 300$ in credit card debt because I learned from my parents' multiple bankruptcies that it is never a good idea to have more than one credit card, to never pay off a credit card with a different one, and that it's not free money. We have one credit card with a 500$ limit. We rack it up and pay it off every few months to build credit. Once our credit is in the Good range, we aren't gonna use it so much anymore. College and unexpected car repairs: $3500 While going to night school, bought a house, got married, totaled a car, had a kid, lost my job, totaled a second car. When I lost my job I had between $6,000 and $8,000 in credit card debt. About 3 years later it had ballooned to over $70,000 spread over several cards. Didn't really make any large purchases in that time, but continued to use the credit cards. Also my wife was paying the bills, and when things were getting really bad she'd skip a payment evry month, but she'd always skip a payment on a different card. This had the effect of maximizing the interest rate on every single card we had. We filed for bankruptcy and now have only ONE credit card with a $3,000 limit (which is really higher than we need, I plan on having that lowered) I quit a high paying job to go back and finish college full time. Unfortunately, I didn't stop living the high paying job lifestyle. I ended up $40K in credit card debt. Fortunately, after college, I learned to live in a more frugal manner, cutting my debt down about a quarter. And then the company I had joined went public and my options were worth enough to get out of debt and put a down payment on a house. Now the mortgage is the only debt I carry. My wife got into debt right out of high school when cc companies sent her unsolicited cards (not applications, actual cards). She was a summer missionary with the Southern Baptist Convention and used the cards to buy clothes and food for people in need. We got married and I was determined to pay off her debt. I had just graduated college and was getting great zero percent offers on cards, so I transferred her balances onto my cards. Then the "tech bubble" burst and I was laid off in early 2001. I was able to find a job doing military contracts. In September of 2001, the military froze all contracts to pay for the war in Afghanistan, so I got laid off again. (Twice in one year.) I didn't have much savings and after they were spent, we had to live off of the cards until I could find a new job. I peaked at about $30,000 in unsecured debt. I'm now down to about $20,000 and have a strategy which will have all the debt paid off in about three years. I should be debt free by 2009 barring any further crisis. I only have about $1500 in credit card debt. Most of that is from a vacation to St. Kitts in February, 6 months of personal training at a gym(you save money if you all all at once), and airline tickets to visit my family in Indiana next week. Every dollar spent has been worth it. All of the debt is at 9% interest or lower. I plan on having it paid off by October. But - don't get me started on the $32000 I still owe in college loans - just for 2.5 years of Graduate School. But I have 28 more years to pay that off! Amanda in Alexandria, VA I invested heavily in kitten disposal devices. About $5000. It started in grad school when the loan money ran out at the end of the semester- apparently the pizza guy doesn't like the barter system. After school... well, I just like things. Usually expensive things. trip to london, beer, trips to portland, or (damn ex girl friend) to high about 5,000 I've got ~$2000 on a maxed American Express. I pay it down to about $1000 every six months then go out and buy more stuff. Mainly music equipment. I just pretend its not there. Gotta pay my taxes first! Chris L. I have $2500 in student loans and my future wife has $12000+ and is currently applying for more against my advice. Someone please shoot me! - S. Long Vet bills, unexpected expenses I lived on the CHEAP in college. Ate only on the meal plan, drank in frat house basements for free - no fancy bars for me! I got through college with ZERO credit card debt, no school loans and money in the bank (thanks to a small inheritance). I thought I had it all figured out . . . until I married a woman with $200,000 in school loans. So far (8 years later) her cooking is my meal plan and I am drinking frat-quality beer until we're out of debt. Rinse, repeat. My butt smells like farts! no credit card debt, suckers!!!!!!!!!!!! Me? Well it all started with my cars. I'm a custom car and truck builder, so I just kept buying parts, and tools, and miscellaneous crap. Then I paid it all off. Years go by, and I get back into some credit cards so I can repair the problems I had previously. I'm now "supposed" to ring up the tab, and then pay it off - I just forget about the last part. Now I've added my girlfriend's debt into the equation, but on the flipside, we've also added her income. We're about $10k in debt right now - $7k hers, $3k mine - and every month we're paying off one card or another. Can't wait for my October 13th. -Kevin www.kevinwhipps.com Rob, I Don't own a credit card! Here in Australia(the land of the suckaroos!) the credit debit is in the thousands per capita! How can this be when the only person I care to mention (being me) owes nothing on a credit card Buttplug. I'm not in credit card debt. I pay both of them off completely every month. People who are well-off and yet get deep in debt amaze me, but I still sometimes feel sorry for them. I shat a lot Oh yes oh yes Whores... $153,489.34 Never, NEVER, Let a girl use your credit card. Oh sure, we were going to get married, but that makes no difference. STUPID STUPID STUPID. Oh yeah, getting mono and being out of work for 4 months didn't help. None, Zip, Nada,... I know better. fancy stage lighting... $1,700 car loan... $12,000 credit card debt...priceless Don't have any, never have. Parking tickets in Boston, Mass. + 8 months of unemployment in Los Angeles (I couldn't even get a job at the grocery store or a temp agency) = about $8,000. well, we have about 30grand... some of it stupid over spending while the wife and I were dating... about 5000 for a car, 8grand for my wife doing mary kay (you could od a whole expose about that along with the herbalife) Various vacations and crap for the house is on there too. Lukily now I have a job that pays pretty good bonuses, so if we stick to our plan it should be all payed off in 2 years. It just sucks to basically already have spent 2 years woth of bonuses. I bought too many boomarangs and didgeridoos in Australia, about $1,500 I got into the credit card for about $3000 to buy an engagement ring. I paid it off within a year, though. Dental bills + car repair: $2000 None. Sorry. porn and cheese whiz Pubs, Beer, Women, Porn, and the odd herb. $7500 CDN £0 - I don't have any credit card debts, I'm far too sensible Partly while going to school, and party while being unemployed after graduating. I'm at $3200 and I feel like I'll never pay it off... I'm smart! no credit cards for me!!! i dont even know all the beautiful things to go inside a new house - $12,000 (CAN) getting your credit card bills every month and not being able to afford the MINIMUM payment, on *any* of them - priceless got married. I grad school, I had about $15K of credit card debt. It got out of control when the transmission fell out of my car and had to be replaced. But it was paid off within 18 months of finishing my Ph D. Britains biggest false boobs on a man, £50000 Most of my debt was a result of Stereo equipment, and auto repairs. And maybe some gas for said auto. That amounted to over $3,500 worth. In retrospect, at least I'm still enjoying the stereo equipment. The car is another story. to much guitar/recording equipment- $79,000. 5 guitars, orange amp, recording gear, sound proofing equipment, MAC computers, cables, cheap pizza. all the necessities for success... ACL reconstruction... 5000 We accumulated credit card debt with household items, computer, furniture, cash advances. We had a Sears, Zellers, Capital One, The Brick, Future Shop, student loan, The Bay, and a few other store cards. At it's worst, we had almost 23,000 in debt, and when my husband started our business, we lost a lot of income for the first year or so, and payments were non-existant. Fortuneately, up here in Canada at the time there was a program called "Orderly Payment of Debt", in which through a court order you get protection from being hassled by the creditors, all your debt get put into one monthly payment, and the agency distributes the funds. Interest is frozen at 5%. We paid $400 a month for nearly six years, at which time we were offered the chance to pay it off on a lower settlement offer. We took it, (for a savings of approx $3000), and it went well. Except for The Brick, whose financing company refused to acknowledge the debt being paid, despite us having legal documents showing it being paid off. I fought with them for a bit, then finnally just went through Equifax and Transunion, (credit bureaus), to get the darn thing removed from my credit file. I think they still think we owe them money, but I haven't heard from them for a while, and they have about 10 copies of the docuemnts showing they are paid off, so I think they should get the message soon. Needless to say, I won't set foot in a Brick store again! My credit card debt was about 3000 grand which isnt really all that high. However I had a roomate that was a compulsive liar and later I found out she was on drugs took my money and didn't pay her own bills which I had to cover for a few years because it took me a while to stop feeling sorry for her. My 3000 dollars in debt climbed to over 6000 because of interest and late payments. I finally kicked her out and was able to pay off my bills. The lesson I learned: Trying to fix crazy people is expensive and doesn't usually work! New Computer, new HDTV, and vacation this year to the tune of 3500 bucks $5000 racked up inside of three months. It's amazing what being unemployed in New York City costs. Comic books. lots of em. It took about a year to pay off, but I owed about $6000 after two years of grad school. Some of it was just school supplies (computer stuffs, printing, books) and living (food, toiletries, etc). I'd say the majority was a 3 month internship in San Francisco. It was a paid internship, but it cost more to stay than I was making (so a picked a GREAT sublet on Hyde St) and since I was out on the West Coast I took a few side trips (Las Vegas, LA, Northern California). Debt sucks, but it was the best summer I've had. YOUR MOM IS EXPENSIVE. Don't have any debt :-) I got married. Personnaly, my debt is zero; however, the "half of what you own, I own" thing meant I own half the wifee's debt :( girls Ham Y So far I have been a fairly responsible college student, with no debt! But I do have a bad habit of forgetting to pay them. $1500 US credit card debt, 500~600 car repair 200~ Glasses MIsceleania I cannot remember, mainly GAS! & just poor pay-off habit's & now I try to pay $200/month & cannot get ahead! Honeymoon, two years ago. We're at about $1,500 total on our cards. We keep paying it off, but keep using the card for plane tickets and such. $5k pretty much on furniture, so I guess it isn't as bad... $10,500 acquired through the time I was in grad school, but I'm taking out student loans to pay them off next year. In college, same old sad story. Oh- and also a little bit of abdominal surgery (which totally sucked). There's nothing like getting two feet of intestines removed from your body and getting a $3,000 bill. woo hoo! With credit card debt and hospital debt, I'm in the hole about $5,000. We won't even talk about school tuition. Yikes.... Pay it off every month...sucka! My cocaine addiction. I accumulated almost 50,000 dollars in debt I ran a website that was puletastic. Then I put google ads all over the front page. Now I'm debt free! Pule! Like $1500 moving. no debt ! New road bike! $1000 I don't have any, thanks to the lottery! (The kentucky state lotto proceeds fund the college scholarship I get, among others.) I have no debit as I have no credit card. Pogs I'd like to see some kind of Privacy Policy before I actually answer your question. Credit card debt? What's that? My wife took over paying the bills. I used to pay the card off each month, but she decided to save money in the bank instead of paying the bill. $9k College, Drinking, Car Repairs, Casino Trips. $23,000 Tim (NY) Moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta. $5,000 I'm a compulsive shopper and impulse buyer. I can't even begin to list the things I've bought on credit. Mostly Things I didn't need. I have it down to around $5,000 now though. I'm a compulsive shopper and impulse buyer. I can't even begin to list the things I've bought on credit. Mostly Things I didn't need. I have it down to around $5,000 now though. None, 100% paid off monthly, College paid for by work, they also kindly pay for beer. This year alone, my wife and I have had to pay over $8,000 in medical bills due to a thyroid surgery for her, a trip to the emergency room for my kidney stones, and then six veneers for her teeth! I acquired it the old fashioned way....I married someone with it. We had the "it's time to stop using the cards" discussion prior to getting married, and I'm pleased to say that we no longer have a balance. At the peak, it was a little bit under $17,000. It was racked up by three visits to the vet, some furniture, and of course six years of those day to day things you can't live without... $0, and it will stay that way. I got into credit card debt when I was in Bangladesh. Whores and opium. I wracked up a debt of 34,212.54 Taka. Luckily for me this equates to only $500 US dollars. Man, those were good times. its must be getting pretty bad when we all assume everyone has credit card debit....most do but I have none Buying an engagement ring that I ended up not needing. Originally $3000, now $400. Still have the ring. Car Loan. No Credit Cards! triplets - $30,000. We refinanced our house so now it's $0 Not my tale of credit card debt, but a friend of mine's... By the time we were Juniors in High School, she had $2,000 in credit card debt. Why? Tanning and make-up. The girl was constantly unnaturally orange in color and had about an inch of make-up on her face. This is why I always paid with cash for things in High School... a good lesson for everyone. i dont have none, too young lol I just bought a piano. Maxed the thing out in one fell swoop. :D a $2000, going on a vacation in a few weeks ^.^ but we make regular payments... Oh, I don't have any, thank you very much. I never wanted to get one, either, but you have to have, like, two in able to qualify for a mortgage. So, looks like I'll have to at some point. --Andrew Albion, NY $12,000. Three years at a private university. Husband and father all three years. The best job I could find paid less than $9 an hour, and my wife stayed home with the kiddies. Needless to say, the credit card debt is only a small chunk of my total debt. Bought a house, and put some of the down payment on the credit card to get enough to make 10% down instead of 5%. Credit card debt currently at about $3500. Drugs. 1,000,000 dollars. Never did. Always pay them off. Thank you and have a nice day. My parents tought me only to go into dept for schooling, a car, or a house. I'm pretty much kept to that and our only debt now is our house. Both cars and school are payed off. We always pay our credit card off in full when the bill arrives. The only downside is that this keeps your spending limits low and interest rates high, cause as far as the banks are concerned, you're not a good customer (or at least not good for their pockets). Tried to start a business. :( No debt. Owe some to my in-laws, but am overall to the good. Credit debt sucks. There's a reason usury used to be illegal and recognized as immoral. It's credit card companies that just hand out money left and right that ruin people. How can you expect people to be careful spending money they haven't earned? Bastards. I racked up about $3,500 in college earning minimum wage and supporting my good-for-nothing hobo boyfriend. The bum! It's paid now. Lots of trips to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Don't know how much. My parents never showed me the bills. They were just happy I wasn't in prison. We no longer have credit card debt, but at its peak it was around $2000. The most expensive thing I bought was a PDA for $500. Everything else was entertainment. none! what's wrong with people? i am interested in hearing the stories.... it's a scourge. what probably saved me was my parents being extremely in debt themselves. they're still in way over their heads. no debt for me, I am scared to death of credit cards! $700 CD's, Magazine subsriptions, and mail order chicken. --The Nuge-- furniture and computer stuff A 56" TV, couches, clothes, and more things than a 22 year old college student could afford!!! Music equipments. Synths, mixers, interfaces, samples, not cheap. At about $4000 now. porn. I didn't. College, car insurance...etc I still owe 5K + The only debt I owe is on my house. I never put more on my credit cards than I can afford to pay off immediately. Recommended for everyone! I have no credit card debt, because I don't have a credit card. I don't spend money I can't touch. However, I do have a loan from my father. I owe him $1415, which is going to go up to roughly $2800 in a week or so. It's all from my motorcycle, two mechanics, insurance, and Ministry of Transportation crap. I've never had a credit card and I refuse to get one. have not had a crdit card for years,why pay someone to use my own money? if you want something save for it. but i have bad credit for not having credit, ha ha jokes on me. UBES I currently owe about $4,500 but it has been as high as $15,000! Mostly this from eating out, vacations, and fun stuff. A little beer/liquor but no drugs, hookers, or gambling. -Josh I'm up to about $5000 because a)it's summer and my school job isn't there in the summer b)the government loans don't cover summer. I accumulated it through two out of state trips, car insurance, health insurance, clothes for a job interview (so I can hopefully pay it off), groceries, etc. It all adds up. I married it. Online Gambling...ohh...almost a straight! I racked up about $10K during college and the two years following when I was looking for a job and settling into a new city and job. Currently over $14,000. Began accumulating in my sixth year of college, when I took loans and transferred to a university to finish my undergraduate degree. Bought major purchases on credit, such as appliances, auto work, vacation expenses, etc. Maintain nearly a dozen accounts, shift balance between accounts to keep the lowest possible interest rates (usually below 6%). With smart attention one can avoid a crushing debt load (and I have). I can afford payments but tend to buy more each month than I pay off. Currently have a plan which should pay off debt in three years... assuming I control my spending. Overall I wish I had controlled spending before (I estimate I've paid thousands in interest by now) but do not regret the opportunities that credit allowed (such as travelling to the UK for 8 days' vacation - a three thousand dollar expense that was well worth it!) My credit card debt is so high it hits the moon. I accumulated it with a butterfly net. buying electronics-computers (PC & Laptop), Ipod, TV, DVD player, DVD Recorder, & Digital Cameras. My debt is too much, don't want to say! Haven't. Never had a credit car and I have zero debt. Yes, I'm that annoying, unsympathetic jerk at parties. It made up the difference between unemploment and my bills for 8 months a few years ago. It's almost paid off now. I wish my answer was more fun... Arnie Heitz $4500.00 divorce/mistress expenses almost 3000, clothes, food, gas, all those life necessities I have no debt at all! I used a clever little trick called "good money management". Whenever I needed to buy groceries and my bank account was nearing empty, I'd just apply for another credit card. I'd pat myself on the back for being so clever. No need to beg the parents for a little loan. Groceries, and that tv I really wanted, covered! So now I'm about $5,000 in the hole... but I do have a lot of very nice electronics, and food in the fridge. by being out of work for 5 months Around $14,000, Mostly because of school & Books. Porn. Astronomical. i bought a nice new shiney tool box... got me for 8 grand $4000 from studying in Paris. (studying meaning: drinking, dining, and fondue) Christmas presents and a cruise/airfare, thousands. paid off now! My wife is bipolar and cannot control her spending. For a long time I was a wuss and did not try to control HER. She kept ordering credit cards behind my back and the companies kept sending them to her; she would max out each one in turn and order another one. At our peak we had $52K in credit card debt. It took eight years and considerable emotional investment on my part, but it's all paid off, as of about two months ago. Freebirds, IV Foot Patrol, Meister Brau, gift to the Leprechaun no credit card debt in college, but ran up 1800$ trying to set up house after i graduated. paid it off by using a car insurance repair check instead of having my car fixed when a squirrel dropped a nut on the roof and totally dented it up... this wouldn't have been a big deal, but this was my first brand new car, and it was only 2 weeks old! i still have the car, but no debt. oh yeah, the car will be paid off next month. I bought a farm in Iowa and started growing corn. Then a voice told me to build a baseball diamond inside and i listened. The materials for the feild cost me thousands and the reduction in my crop yeilded less money come harvest time. I ended up losing my farm and ended up with a total of 22,000 in credit card debt. $15000, as a 'wedding gift' from my wife Hookers and booze None yet! crazy intrests and crazy spending Buy swooning the girl I would marry; it got up to $US4000. Fortunately, I've never had credit card debt. I pay it off every month. College as well. It should be illegal for you to be able to count student loans as actual income. I mean, I didn't even see that money since it went directly to the school, yet Citibank expected me to pay them with it. Then more credit cards to pay the interest on the first ones. About $5000 when I graduated with no job in sight. I aquire my debt by buying stuff. But then paying it off at the end of the month. Credit Card debt is for chumps. Stupid chumps that can't plan and have little common sense. The first time was school - about $3000 on credit cards, $15000 in student loans. The second time was being unemployed for about 15 months - about $7000. Got married - ran up about $30k in bills. They lasted longer than the ex-wife, but weren't nearly as irritating :-) ex toys, big time @ 10g's I pay in cash and small sexual favours hospital bills for cancer, about $10,000 pule Well ... first there was the medical school. Then the multiple trips to Europe, and my general unwillingness to stay in hostels. After that was the big move where I had to buy furniture for three new rooms I'd never had before. And then there were the required expenses for work ... medical malpractice insurance, licenses, exams (1450 for hell??) and other various fees. $160 000 later, I very much look forward to the day when I'm a practicing physician. i dont own a credit card. but i do have a thing for cheese. I don't have any debt myself yet, but I believe my parents managed to rack up quite a bit of credit card debt through vacations to Disney World years ago. Furniture. $6k. Two words: My wife. $21000 new computer, books, dvds, computer games, gas, and resturaunts $8,000 I moved into an apartment with my girlfriend... Hit almost $10k before I stopped, got it paid in just under a year and bought a house. Currently $9,000. How the hell DID it get that high? It always seems to creep back up to that level, usually with car repairs, hospital bills, or trips back to visit family. NONE! Bitch. living expenses when i was low on cash. I'm about $600 in debt. I spent tons and tons on credit cards and lines of credit. I got movies, a surround sound system, a tv, books, video games, pornography, baby clothes and diapers, new mattresses, new pots and pans... you name it. We owed $45,000 before we cut up the cards and stopped using them. Now we're 3/4 done paying them off (at $700 per month) and the future looks bright! I'm lucky enough to be learning from my parent's mistakes, and I don't plan on opening a damned credit card. Poor bastards, them. Strip clubs, Adult web sites/chat, Adult Massage aka Rub n' Tug, and sex parties. My credit card debt is AU$6800. That's over a few years of paying bits off, buying something else.. and the cycle continues! Now my car is paid off, I have an extra AU$500 to throw on both my credit cards! Art supplies in college, fresh flowers and lots of dinner and a tent and a bed and some car repairs and part of a car. It was 25,000 at its height. Right now, my credit card debt is approximately $2325... just bought a new Big screen TV!!! woo hoo. Balance should be paid off in the next few days though. My wife and I are down to about $6000 of credit card debt. At one point it was up to 15,000 and it stayed that way because I just could not make payments on time. I made them, but about 5 days late every month. I got that debt buying books and art supplies. Lots and lots of art supplies of all kinds. Computer stuff, music stuff, paint, wood, tools, paper, cameras, etc. My wife ran hers up on restaurants and clothes. A little at a time, all the time. hookers and blow I went shopping after I got divorced. It was all spent on sexy underthings and shoes. The best part is how I paid it off: with the settlement money from the divorce! My friend was denied credit at BestBuy. I appplied, was accepted and let my friend purchase a computer on my new credit card. Living beyond my means! 3 years later it is zero. Cockeyed.com t-shirts it wasn't pretty, just leave it at that NO DEBT!!!! WOOT where's your darn blog silly tard! KY!!! still in high school. my debt is through student loans, about $20,000 right now, stupid private colleges. and as for the debt.. smoking. take that as you wish. Getting a CC I couldn't afford and running it all the way up and oweing more in interest than I spent.. so now it's all written off.. just 5 more years till it clears up.. probably only $4k. Have about $7k myself...couple of high-dollar medical procedures when I was in college with no insurance ... also an iBook, digital camera, and some plane tickets (one was $2k after I missed my return flight from Norway). A fixed 4.9% Capital One card helps a lot. Medical expenses, and not being able to work... its not as high as it was.. was about 30,000. I went on a road trip with my sweetie and ran up a good couple of thousand bucks on my cards over two months. The bus blew up and that was what really drove the total up. We had to stay at a hotel for a couple of days and then get a greyhound from New York all the way to Sacramento. Paid it off eventually, along with some penalties for the period when I wasn't making my payments. um...i didnt. and its not high at all because its non-existant. I don't have any, I don't buy more than I can afford No debt - I planned ahead. Hey, when will you finish the heigth / weight chart? ts About $3000, used paying the occasionabl rent check, buying stupid shit, video games, and computer stuff. I've never regretted a bit of it. None, scholarship! and dad's help. State of Tennessee men in blue pulled me over doing 93 in a 65. I had a cooler full of cokes, and the cop said "Ya got any liquor in that cooler, son?" I said "Nope." He said "Mind if I check?" I foolishly said "Nope." Well, he ended up searching the entire car, finding a bag of "Herbal Refreshments" and a bunch of "Herbal Refreshment Utensils." Slapping me and my buddy in the back of his car and taking us off to the slammer. To avoid the slammer, we paid approximately 1500 bucks to a bail bondsman, and left that evening. That's pretty much the story for that credit card. I've had several others that I bought a bunch of fancy nancy clothes with back when I was a preppy dorkwad. Most recently I got another card with which I've bought some landscaping material and groceries... Total debt is really not too bad, all said and done it's probably about 2500 bucks. The lesson? Don't let the cops search your car, and pay everything with cash. lending money to my sister....$3700 eek! The C.H.U.D.'s Guide to Credit Repair: I went through a phase in college where I would get depressed and then go on miniature shopping sprees to cheer myself up. By the end of my freshman year (1998)I had three credit cards and owed about $3000. Over the next year I dropped out of college and wasn't making enough money to make payments on the credit cards. Between interest, late fees and over-limit fees, my credit card debt quickly surpased the $5000 mark. Fast forward to June of 2006 and things get absolutely ludicrous, and enjoyably so. I never did getting around to making any payments on the credit cards (Stay in school, kids! Please!), and still owe around $5000 to various banks and credit card companies who have, at this point, charged off my delinquent accounts and ceased bothering me about it. I had some car trouble in June, and ultimately was forced to obtain sub-prime auto financing at about 21% interest so that I could drive to work so that I could make my car payment. When I was going over my credit report with the finance guy I was shocked and amazed to see that seven years had passed since there was any activity on my old credit accounts and that they no longer appeared on my credit report. Even more fantastic, the best advice seems to be that I should never attempt to make any payment, because that would only cause the delinquent accounts to be reported to the credit bureaus all over again. There are even a few very small items I didn't know about that are about to drop off my credit report. I said to Finance Guy, "Geez, I could pay those off right now!" "No, don't do that," Finance Guy chided. "They'll just stay on your credit report longer" So, there it is. If you've got enough patience the path to good credit is as simple as /not doing anything/. I feel like I'm living inside a Yakov Smirnov "Only in America" joke. mexican whores I'm scared of my credit card. I'm a college student. I will try to avoid using it for as long as possible... and yet, I realize that I have to ifI ever plan on buying anything of value. But debt terrifies me!