Everyone has a different idea of what "Debt" means...in terms of dollars what does it mean to you?

Do you include your home as part of your "outstanding debt" ?

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Anything i can't pay within my month of income.

house
car
cellphone
whatever is to hight to be taken care of in one month..

because say you have $180 alotted for cellphone, and your bill turns out to be $250. that is $70 that you have to find next month to cover that bill...

and in as tight as budget as i am in, $70 is almost all my food budget for the month (its $80)..

so if you don't pay it next month and the next and the next... guess what? here comes collections!! debt is a horrible cycle...

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I voted for "anything I can't pay off at the end of the month". If I am carrying balances, it is debt to me!

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I voted for "anything I can't pay off at the end of the month" also, but when I speak about it I do say we are "debt free" so I apparently don't include the house in that. As long as I can pay the "monthly" payment to the mortgage I don't consider it a debt - even though technically it is. However if we had any credit cards, I would consider those debt even if we were paying the monthly payments. Or a car loan - I would consider that debt too, payments made or not. I don't know why I don't consider the house one Maybe because it will ALWAYS be there for pretty much as long as I live

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Actually you make perfect sense (again though look who is agreeing with you )

I consider it the same thing...when I say "Debt free" I mean "debt free, except my house".

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Interesting enough...when I add up what I consider to be our "Debt" I never include my house...or my car payment...even though it is. I always just consider the credit cards or a loan.

I wonder why I do that

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We don't have any credit cards or a mortgage payment, just rent. so anything that is not payed on time plus our car and insurance payment is debt to me.

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I also put "anything I can't pay off by the end of the month".

I used to think of debt being anything on a credit card that wasn't paid off at the end of the month.

Since Dave Ramsey I now include car debt in there too. I also don't include the house but maybe someday when we've paid the house off I'll then start thinking of house debt as debt too!!

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House payment, car payments, credit card or charge accounts, Medical bill or dental bills that are on a payment plan.

To me food, utilities, phone bill and gas for the cars is not debt, that is just the expenses associated with living.

I also picked anything that can't be paid off by the end of the month. I think a house mortgage, "maybe" a car payment, and "maybe" school loans would be acceptable bills to carry over. But I think if you can't pay off charge card bills or utilities every month, then something should be done to either lower debt or raise income.

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