r/debtfreeliving

I am 32 M separated, hopefully will be divorced someday.

Stuck in a debt trap created by my father. He is old now and unable to work.

The total debt right now is a little over USD 500k

Have a property that's seized by bank and would eventually be sold off to get back bank's money(around 35% of total debt).

Another property i.e our home was already sold off a few years back to pay some debts. Presently I live on rent with my family and have nothing else that can be sold off to get free of the remaining 65% of my unsecured debts from market, friends and family.

I don't want to quit / die without paying people back.

Can someone help me in making money?

I am really stressed and dont know what should I do. Not able to function how I could before covid.

Income: ($3,600/month)

Current monthly bills:
Rent: $460 ($230/check)
Car: $515
Car insurance (to dad): $100
Cash loan: $90/month ($320 left)
Credit card minimum: $30

Paydays: 7/10, 7/24, 8/7, 8/21
I’m moving into a new apartment on August 22, and my share of rent will be about $600/month.

My situation
Right now I have:
$1,920 in cash advance loans
$1,000 credit card balance
Only $400 left in savings, which is going toward a toll violation before my next paycheck
I also need:
Contacts: ~$300
New tires by August: ~$600
At least $600 saved for the apartment

The biggest problem is my cash advances. I have to pay them off before the beginning of August because I’m going on a work trip, and my per diem gets deposited into the same account. That account is currently negative, so about $1,600 would immediately disappear if I don’t clear it first.

Current plan
7/10 check: Pay rent, car payment, and buy contacts. I’d have about $550 left to live on.

7/24 check: Put basically the entire paycheck toward paying off the cash advances before the work trip.
The problem is that after doing that, I won’t have enough money for rent or living expenses until my 8/7 paycheck. The only solution I can see is taking another small cash advance (~$500) just to get through those couple of weeks, then paying it off in August.
I’ve also considered a personal loan to consolidate everything, but with my credit I’m mostly seeing lenders like NetCredit or CreditFresh, which seem expensive.
My goal is to be debt-free (besides my car loan) as soon as possible while still covering:

Work trip in early August
Tires
Apartment move on August 22

Is there a smarter way to handle this, or am I stuck slowly working my way out with small cash advances? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm trying to figure out whether I should keep paying off my debt myself or go with a consumer proposal.

I'm 35 and live in Ontario, Canada. I recently started a full time job making $25 an hour, working 42 hours a week

Here are my debts:

- Credit card: about $8,600

- Line of credit: about $9,800

- Car loan: about $10,800

- Student loan: about $7,000

Total debt is roughly $36,000.

My monthly rent is $900. I also have the usual expenses like groceries, gas, insurance, phone, and car costs. I commute to work, so fuel is a significant expense.

I'm not missing payments right now, but I feel like I'm making very little progress because of the interest, especially on the credit card. My goal is to get out of debt as quickly as possible and eventually save for my own place.

Based on my situation, would you continue paying the debt normally, or would you seriously consider a consumer proposal? For anyone who has gone through one, do you regret it, or was it worth it?

I'd appreciate any honest advice.

Some people avoid debt completely, while others use it to build businesses, buy homes or invest in education. Where do you stand? Can debt ever be considered a smart financial tool? Explain your thinking.

Hi everyone! I’m 28 years old, live in New Jersey, and I’m looking for some advice on whether I’m prioritizing my finances correctly. I finally feel like I’m getting organized, but I’d love some outside opinions.

Income: $100,000 salary
Current debt:
Private student loan: approximately $71,750 at 6.75%

Federal student loans: approximately $20,000

Credit card debt: approximately $9,500

Car loan: approximately $7,900

Assets/Savings:
About $800 in my emergency savings

About $20,000 in my 401(k)

Monthly living expenses (excluding debt payments):

Approximately $1,100 to $1,300 per month including rent, groceries, gas, phone, car insurance, subscriptions, etc.

Car situation:
I drive a 2017 Kia Sportage with just over 100,000 miles and still owe about $7,900 on it. I’ve had to put money into repairs over the past year, and my check engine light is currently on. It’s been intermittent and I’m in the process of getting it looked at. I’m trying to decide whether I should keep driving it for a few more years while I aggressively pay down debt or start planning for a replacement before it becomes a bigger financial burden.

Long term goals:
Buy a house in the next 2 to 4 years
Get married around 2028
Build a solid emergency fund
Become debt free or as close as possible

I’ve worked really hard to increase my income from $55k to $72k to $100k over the last few years, and I don’t want to waste the opportunity I’ve created for myself. I know I have a lot of debt, but I finally feel like I’m in a position where I can make meaningful progress if I have the right strategy.

If you were in my shoes, how would you prioritize paying everything off? Would you keep driving my current car or start planning for a replacement? Would you focus more on debt payoff or increasing savings? Is there anything you’d do differently to set yourself up for long term financial success while also working toward buying a house and getting married in the next few years?

Any advice, lessons learned, or things you wish you had done differently would be greatly appreciated!

Holy crap. I tracked my spending outside of my budget for this past month (still working on figuring everything out, so not beating myself up about this), and we spent an additional $600 on extra stuff. Most of it was an agreed upon spending with my spouse, but what an eye opener. I have clearly always grossly underestimated how much we spend randomly throughout the month haha. That would have made a significant dent in our debt and I'm glad to finally realize why we're struggling all the time without chipping away at our balances. Really looking forward to continuing on this.

Fucked up gambling and I have massive debt , help me with a job or anything to turn my life around.

I don't want to continue like this anymore

**150 days ago** I lost around 30,000 euros, which doubled my original 30k loan — now I'm basically paying almost **1,000 euros a month** just for my gambling mistakes, and all of this in a country where nearly half the population doesn't even earn 1,000 euros gross. My only luck is a seemingly stable, well-paying job.. but the question is for how long. So I spend my days paralyzed by paranoia about what comes first.. whether I manage to pay off at least some of it before I can refinance and extend the loan to lower my monthly costs, or whether I lose my job and I'm simply done and have no idea what to do.

I have roughly 7.5 years of repayment left if I don't make any extra payments, and about 4 years if I manage to find some extra money each month.

My question tho:

**Does anyone have an unhinged tip on what to do?** Has anyone been in a similar situation and can advise me on how to ease the weight on your mind? There are days when it suffocates me completely, and normally I've even forgotten I'm addicted to gambling when I have to deal with this shit I caused myself.

Thank you so much for your answers brothers, may the force be with us

So, brief back story.

I grew up having very little and had to start working really early in my childhood to be able to buy things that my parents couldn’t afford like, clothes, shoes, school supplies etc.

Now, I work in a reliable trade making good money, I find it really hard to manage my finances responsibly and resist the urge to buy everything I want. I’m almost 22, dealing with some credit card debt, vehicle debt, and general living expenses.

I’m very aware of my emotions towards this enough to know I don’t enjoy the position I’m in and would like to change.

I’d love advice from anyone who’s been in a similar spot or has guidance on managing money wisely.

Today, I just payed off over $36.6k dollars in credit card debt

Amex Platinum $14,066.78 —> $0.00
Amex Gold $14,127.90 —> $3,127.90
Capital One Venture $8,322.39 —> $0.00
Capital One Quicksilver $39.00 —> $0.00
Apple Card $1,183.77 —> $0.00

It’s possible. Don’t give up on your plan. You can do it. Stay debt free!

Yes, You should take Debt in your 20s but amount should be too low. This will help you improve your credit score. Like my EMI is 17000 per month which is less than 10% of my monthly income, but I see in CIBIL it is improving my score and my account credit age. What do you think on this?

I am currently working on paying off some credit card debt. For a while now, I’ve been wanting to get a new MacBook Air and decided to push that off to next year so I can focus on paying my credit cards. However, with the recent Apple announcement of price hikes with their products, the laptop will go from $1299 to $1499. Best Buy is also having a sale and they have it for $1149; today is their last day.

How would you approach this situation? TIA

i have around $8,000 in credit card debt that built up when my work hours got cut last year. the 25% interest rate means the minimum payments barely touch the balance and it feels like i’m just treading water every month.

i looked into timefinancing service as a possible way to consolidate into one loan with better terms. how long does it usually take for your credit score to improve after consolidating debt like this? and what loan term length works best if the main goal is becoming debt free as fast as possible?

Yes you heard me right, I had a debt of 6.2, lakhs , for people I need to give 1.45 lakhs and rest are from apps

Iam a 22m , i don't know how I got this much debt too

It all started with 10k and now it is this much , i don't have the amount to pay at that time so I took loan from other apps to clear this app emis , likewise it raised to around 1 to 2 lakhs , then I asked my friend where I made a bigger mistake , he gave me 1.5 but asked for 3.5l in 1 year , i accepted reckalse at that time to clear app loans , eventually to pay his loans I took loans from apps again, eventually it went to 9 lakhs

Luckily I got an apprenticeship at big mnc, where I cleared some amount of his loans by that joining bonus without saying anyone

For the next 2 months my emi is 45k and by August middle i need to pay the rest to him, i don't know what iam doing, even though iam in top mnc iam unable to do anything, struct in middle and crying everywhere

I don't know what to do , I don't need financial advice now , i need a part time or remote work that will generate me side income, I know dsa , web development, system design, Full stack , learning Ai

I know I can change my life by next year with these skills, but I don't have so much time, i need to clear everything by this year

I can do what ever it takes , and please help me genuine

Hello Guys, just want to ask some advise how to handle this kind of situation? I'm really in deep of dept dahil sa sugal. Almost 250k ang utang ko sa lahat ng pwede mapag utangan. Ay idea how to handle regarding the payment without any harassment will happen? Thank you!