http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/home-cents/average-canadians-consumer-debt-hits-25960/article548293/  
 
Does this seem like alot to you or am I out of touch here?  

right on the money for me....but that includes my mortgage.

but includes cars, boats, rvs etc.  
Maybe I should get a monster truck on VISA to drive to work.  
PS, I'm WAY below average(but only in this)!  
 
Edited by Jason Turner, 2012-08-14 13:21:39

My family is completely debt free. No credit card debt, car is paid for in full and student debt is paid off. We are also in our mid 20's.

I don't feel so bad about my debt now haha.

While this may be surprising to you, it is realty for a lot of people. Those with too much non-mortgage debt may have got that way by spending beyond their means, ending up with a credit card balance every month. After awhile, it adds up. People don't realize how much that CC interest is costing them. Or if they do, they are in denial and just unable to control their spending. Credit cards should be paid off in full every month. If you can't do it, you may be spending too much!

credit card debt isnt just about over spending. unexpected funeral costs/car accidents/unexpeceted job loss, etc its not just about over spending on cloths/alcohol/movies/eating out etc. i was completely debt free (im in my 20's) car paid off/school and i due to a recent car accident the damages on my vehicle is 1 paycheck. and i still have rent/ car insurance/ food/ gas/ and regualar bills to pay. so its not just about over spending.

25,000 doesn't seem that bad if its on a car or other larger item, this all depends on your salary though and if its on a line of credit or a CC? if its on a CC then your screwed  
 
i wonder though many people over spend and roll it into their mortgage so i wonder if the numbers are not telling the whole tale? i know of someone who paid $150 for their house 20 years ago and now has a $230 mortgage on it, despite have paid into it for 20 years!!!  
 
sure right now they are carrying the mortgage for the same as they did when they started but if the interest rate goes up they too are screwed, all for consumer depts, really they over spent $80 not including all the interest payments they made, now if they didn't over spend they would be nearing mortgage free and just think of all the money they could be spending (or saving)guilt free, just goes to show you what a bit of over spending can do  
 
ps we're mortgage and dept free so i guess we're not average thats what good money management can do  
 
(and we only make an average amount, i'm actually saddened that people making only 5000 less than us qualify for habitat houses)

I have no debt at all. The only debt I'm anticipating the near future is a house which I am trying to put 20 % down on... We'll see how that goes.  
My family always taught me with credit cards unless you have the money in your bank account to back up a purchase on credit you can't afford it. it's not free money. Obviously car loans and lines of credit for house renos etc are different.

we are far from that!!  
 
the only debt we have is my car(another 3 years i think ) and i usually have a CC bill. my fiance's car is paid off and never uses his CC unless we are booking a hotel. and we are mortgage free. we are in our mid to late 20's.  
 
i agree that its not always overspending though that causes debt. its called life! we should all expect the unexpected and have a little money saved but the reality is, not many people have this.

true life emergencies come up but really if you don't have the cash for them you ARE over spending lol  
 
although its happend to us too, we just had a $4000 bill come up unexpectedly and we didn't want to take out of our TFSA because i try to view it as rs, we would have been a few thousand short but i picked up some work and my husband got some OT so we're good now

Not even close for us, we owe a few hundred dollars.  
 
Granted that will change when a "different" car is acquired: sometime in the next few years.

I'm just under that with about $20,000 in debt, but that includes a new car. Hopefully I'll get everything paid off soon. I'm looking for more opportunities to make money and get that paid off quicker.  
 
I'm curious, What's more important to you? Paying off debt now, or saving TSFA or RRSPs for the future?

traveller said "true life emergencies come up but really if you don't have the cash for them you ARE over spending lol     although its happend to us too, we just had a $4000 bill come up unexpectedly and we didn't want to take out of our TFSA because i try to view it as rs, we would have been a few thousand short but i picked up some work and my husband got some OT so we're good now "

yes and no i think.  
 
some people unfortunately live paycheck to paycheck and are already sticking to a budget and not spending on frivolous things. when an emergency arises, these ppl will find it hard to pay for it. but i do see your point, in budgets you should also have a percentage of money set aside for saving. so i guess if you dont have this in your budget, you could argue your overspending.  
 
you said its a result of good money managing in an earlier post. i agree with this but also think luck plays a part too. my fiance is great at saving money and that is partly why we are able to have a stash of saved money but he also got lucky by getting our home for an amazing deal which has allowed us to be mortgage free earlier then most and to have that extra money to save for emergencies and such. just my opinion though some people however, dont believe in luck. i have always believed in luck as i have always had good luck on my side when needed!!  
 
Edited by sammy, 2012-08-14 15:05:55

I'll admit it our family is average sometimes above sometimes below lol. Really not that uncomfortable with the debt as it is all low interest and we have a beautiful home which has a mortgage but easily worth more than we owe and also have a small business.

in some ways i could say luck is involved too but when i hear stories lots of time all i hear is decisions that left the people where they are  
 
i married a guy with similar money views and we work hard to learn new skills and always treat jobs as a priority, that has enabled us to both have a decent income potential(i can grab work when we needed it), we also drove older cars and bought a dump for a house, we then looked for deals on materials and fixed it up as we lived in it when we could, another decision that helped us be dept free, when i look at our lives sure we made mistakes but its our many life decisions that helped us be where we are, we make only an average living but we feel we are rich, we can travel and i can mostly stay home with our child  
 
others say they can't leave family or like my mom, had to live in bc even though dad had a good job in AB(shes now broke) or in my other story on interest, people make the decision to buy a house when they can't afford it and still spend like they were or buy to much of a house fix it because they want to(you only NEED warmth and food, not a nice looking kitchen), and/or work lower jobs because have to have weekends off (or whine at their jobs that discourages moving up and getting more money), keep their dog ect ect ect. its their right to make all of those decisions but its their decisions that get them where they are, not necessarily luck

I haven't been trying that hard!! =o)

bigmike said "I haven't been trying that hard!! =o) "

If at first you don't succeed...

Our mortgage and other debt (besides cc) is rolled into a home line of credit...I wish there was some stats that would include the mortgage...I can't tell where we fall in this. I do know that our home, vehicles RV etc. is well under 1/4 of what we owe....think thats good

Is around $6000 with student loans. I should have that paid off in just over 2 years. Then the tough part which will put me back into debt for a little bit even with my half decent income tax returns. I have to get a couple of the valves of my instrument replated (likely will cost me atleast $1000 and not see it for 4 months if I'm lucky) or get a new or slightly used one ($6000 or so).

Also worth looking at net worth when trying to get an understanding of the big picture. Here's a recent link that has the average Cdn household net worth at $363,202.... A healthy amount of that would be real estate/home equity I'd think:  
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canadians-are-richer-than-they-think/article4380634/  
 
Edited by Adam, 2012-08-14 17:51:25

adam - the reason our net worth has gone up compared to the US is because of their housing crash and subsequent cnd dollar value  
 
all of that is great imo but since we need a house to live in and housing prices can fluctuate i don't count on my house to provide income or much value besides shelter, and i think your right, most of the net worth is in our houses so canadians should still watch how much dept they carry  
 
imo, which i alluded in earlier posts and BTALK said, many people have dept rolled into their mortgage either in refinancing, second mortgages or lines of credit so the figure of$25,000 doesn't paint a true picture, those people could be in trouble if interest rates go up a few percent or the housing market or job market decline  
 

But I'm not high maintenance, nor do I need to have that next new thing or strive to live high on the hog.  
 
Any debt that I know I'm going to owe on for more than 12 months becomes priority #1. Unless it is a large dollar figure purchase (house, land, car, chalet in the Alps), it is paid off as fast as possible. Credit card not used unless the balance is paid in full each month.  
 
Need/requirement trumps whim/want. And yet, I'm still very happy. Very few can understand why. Go figure  
I'd like to become a minimalist but I do like "stuff".

I recently read a relevant quote:  
 
"It is not the high cost of living  
but the cost of living high."  
 
Food (available at the food bank and soup kitchen if you need to. Cook from scratch and you will save money and be healthier for it.)  
 
Shelter (a family of six can survive in a three bedroom, one bathroom house. Granite counter tops are not a necessity.)  
 
Clothing (plenty of hand me downs being offered on eBrandon and cheap clothes at the Nearly New Shop. Child Tax Benefit for new shoes. Brand new or brand name clothes are not a necessity.)  
 
Anything else is a luxury that needs to be paid using cash (or a credit card that is paid off immediately).  
 
Mortgages are a case of rent the house or rent the money to buy the house. Both are acceptable alternatives.  
 
Education  
We need to teach proper money management in school before the credit card companies mess with the young adults and convince them they can afford that cruise (or new furniture or latest electronic toys) with just $50 a month for the rest of their lives.  
 
I used to think my sister was so lucky. But then I realized that the harder she worked, the luckier she became. She is now debt free and owns a townhouse in Toronto (three blocks from the subway stop). But she worked really hard for that and. looking at it from a more mature point of view, I can no longer say it was all just luck that got her there.  
 
 
 
 
Edited by katwalk1909, 2012-08-14 21:26:11

its awesome that you and your husband make your jobs a priority. i think more people need to do this, especially if they are in debt. your post made me think of this quote....  
 
"live to work or work to live?" i hope that some day my fiance and i are able to eventually have the pleasure of working to live

Lots of new vehicles going up and down the roads. I know we owe something like $35000 on our vehicle.

people have a better start in life then others as well. For isnstance some have parents that can or could help them out a few times when things get bad. or co-sign a car/morgage. I know from experiance that I was living a good life, and lost a parent, then a few yrs later lost the other one. Both were very ill and it took alot of cost for special trips, hotel, medication and basic living. It sure doesnt take long to watch the savings go from a comfortable number down to a small weak one. Recovering from that has made it extreamly hard. I personally dont have alot of debt anymore, other then a car loan. But I can understand how things can get out of hand.

Cars are paid off, mortgage isn't counted, credit cards paid each month.  
 
That leaves a line of credit that we're using for paternity leave, which is likely over that amount by now, but will be cleared by the end of 2013.  
 
Yay for financial frugality!

sammy said "its awesome that you and your husband make your jobs a priority. i think more people need to do this, especially if they are in debt. your post made me think of this quote....     "live to work or work to live?" i hope that some day my fiance and i are able to eventually have the pleasure of working to live "

sometimes it sucks!!! lol, but i would be very stressed with dept (same with my husband) so we make choices that don't put us there, and i do think people need to make choices that help themselves, needs over wants, i was very surprised to find out the highest income bracket for a lot of "lower income program", we're not as rich as i feel apparently lol

Adam said "Also worth looking at net worth when trying to get an understanding of the big picture. Here's a recent link that has the average Cdn household net worth at $363,202.... A healthy amount of that would be real estate/home equity I'd think:   http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/canadians-are-richer-than-they-think/article4380634/     Edited by Adam, 2012-08-14 17:51:25"

Still paying my student loans off (early 30's) simply because the biggest investment I've made so far is education in myself  
 
Won't be debt-free in a good while in the sense made previously - However, with asset liquidation my net worth is quite nice