What's the most credit card debt that you've ever had at one point in your life?

[Anonymous]

$40k. Took 5 years to pay it off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$94K when my husband lost his job the month after our daughter was born at 27 weeks. I was sick enough that I could not return to work immediately - not to mention the stress of getting our daughter through that precarious first year. It took him about 7 months to find something. The medical bills were insane. It took us 4 years to pay it off. Most stressful period of our lives.

Oh my god. That's awful. I'm tense just thinking about that double whammy. Glad things are better for you -- congrats on making it through that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$94K when my husband lost his job the month after our daughter was born at 27 weeks. I was sick enough that I could not return to work immediately - not to mention the stress of getting our daughter through that precarious first year. It took him about 7 months to find something. The medical bills were insane. It took us 4 years to pay it off. Most stressful period of our lives.

PP- hope your DD is ok now. Congrats for paying that huge chunk of debt off - that deserves a pat on the back!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got up to $9K recently because our renter moved out, we couldn't replace her for a year and I had a ton of unexpected car repairs. ($4-$5K.) I don't want to break into my emergency savings because they're already low after a tree fell on our house and insurance didn't cover a lot of things that needed to be done.

We have another renter, so I can knock it out in 6 months.

That's a lot in car repairs. Maybe it's time to get a new car?

[Anonymous]

In our 20s we had $20K, that is $52K today. We just ran up the cards. It took a family bail out, and 3 years to pay it off. It had long term consequences. I would not recommend this to anyone.

[Anonymous]

$55,000

I paid it off in one payment, after I settled a big PI case and took my fee share on it. I'm a PI lawyer. My income tends to be spikey.

[Anonymous]

$0. I've never missed a payment and have always paid in full.

Biggest bill though would be 15k when I was getting married and we paid for the catering.

[Anonymous]

maybe $5000

[Anonymous]

I racked up 3K in my last year of college and getting set up in the city where I had my first job, and I thought it was huge!

I had low costs though. My rent was 500 and it was just me and I didn't go out or party. I paid it off in a few months in spite of my 28K salary. How lucky I was that I was working in a smallish city in Japan where it is actually possible for a young person to rent a simple dwelling in a safe neighborhood for a reasonable amount.

[Anonymous]

About $25k - the bulk of it probably spent at home depot as we own a "fixer-upper."

We paid it off over a year, maybe year and a half. But now that we're on the other side, I can't say I really regret it. It was an important lesson for us (more so my husband) to learn. We certainly won't do that again.

[Anonymous]

None. But I have a good amount of student loan debt still left, around $55k last I looked.

[Anonymous]

Probably around $20K in my early/mid 20s, due to poor decision-making and a deadbeat boyfriend whom I allowed to take advantage of me. Paid it off over a couple of years after I ditched him and got a better job. My credit score definitely suffered for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Zero. My folks were older when they had me (50 and 40) and I'm 48 now, so they lived through The Great Depression. I was taught to never get into debt.

We even own our house with no mortgage.

You're proud of this? How is this a healthy relationship to money?

[Anonymous]

$3,500 is the most I ever rolled over. That was a pretty long time ago.

[Anonymous]

18,000 and it was medical bills. I was stupid and paid out of pocket or dental work. That in addition to some stupid financial decisions made it bad. Took me one year of a second job directed at only paying credit cards and extreme budgeting.