To the people who can't understand how people get into this much debt:

I think you're underestimating the persuasive powers of salespeople who are on commision for selling things like credit cards and loans.

It's not uncommon for someone to sell you a credit card and then diarise a call in 6 months time to sell you a consolidation loan. This then frees up your credit card again for more spending.

As more of your income is getting spent on repayments you start to have to use credit cards for normal expenses - food shopping for instance - and on it goes.

I think the companies selling these products need to take a hell of a lot more responsibility for their sales tactics and their constantly increasing targets and presure on staff to sell at any cost.

I worked in the industry and knew fine well what tactics etc were used and I still fell in to the trap, so what hope is there for the average man in the street?

Yep

£7000 - Car loan.
£300 - Owe my nan
£300 - Credit card

Managable and not so bad - the credit card debt is mainly from Italy this year, Venice is NOT cheap for a start! I still owe my nan for helping me out last year :$

I'm gonna put myself into some more debt soon, though, to get my van interior re-done and some body repair work. I don't worry about that though as

A) At least I have a full time job and nowhere near the debt some folks from uni are in.
B) My van will reflect the money spent on it. Worth about £5-6k as it sits currently, so at least I know if I ever get into dire straits I'll just sell it.

Unfortunately I don't have a copy, no.

It was more of a short hand-scrawled note than a letter saying something like "Please remove my details from your database and do not send me any more letters, thanks."

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2nd year of my student loan, after 4 years that'll be about £13,000. Currently near the max of my £1,250 but that's because I'm still waiting for British Airways to compensate me, guess I should send them the stuff they want!

The bulb on my projector broke yesterday :C hopefully 3M will sort it out since it's within the 12months and they state 2000hrs for the bulbs and it's under 1000hrs. If not, that'll be close to £200 to fix :((

I can honestly say I'm not in debt!

No credit cards, no loan, no mortgage.

Allthough I do still live with my mum and don't really have many bills to pay. I tend to save my money if I want stuff rather than getting credit. I like to think I'm pretty good a spotting nice deal as well.

I also tend to walk to work and back most days (about 2-3 miles) rather than pay for sheffields rather crappy public transport. I don't drive as is just seems like a black hole for money with fuel prices nowadays. I'm a Linux geek and therefore have no software costs. Working at Insight also means I get my 'pooter hardware at cost price +vat which is nice.

In fact, I wonder where all my money actualy goes. I think the vast majority of it goes on food, beer, and taxis when I'm too pissed to walk. Oh and some charity or other, I forget which. Maybe I ought to keep track of things one of these days...

This is where I can gleefully proclaim that I'm about to pay off my student loan before I graduate! It's sitting at a smidgen under £5k but after getting money from my Grandad (now gorne) I can pay it off and save the rest for a car once I graduate so I can hopefully get a proper job a bit further away if needed.

Good old Scotland paying my fees (for now). Bad old Student loans company for charging more interest than I thought they did.

Edit: And as for a credit card, having a job means I can spend as much as my mates but unlike them it isn't on an overdraft or credit card.

(that and I've managed to convince my mum and dad to pay rent, which is handy too!)