As you know I have too much debt?

I recently saw a commercial with two neighbours chatting in the front yard. One had a large number of hidden under his arm that represents his savings plan. Next, cut the hedge had the number “gazillion” below. The next “leader” asked him,

“How much money they’re going to need to retire comfortably?”

The nearby hedge clipping has responded

“A gazillion dollars.” Next one asked him, “how much they put away for retirement?” Near two replied “I don’t know, just throwing a lot of money and hope for the best.”

Next situation two, surprisingly, is much more common scenario, then you might think. CBC Metro morning Ran a feature on February 13 to the surprising number of people in the greater Toronto area, who have a full-time job, but are still living in poverty.

Let’s run some numbers and see where you compare?

How much debt is too much debt?

Suppose you are doing 65,000 per year. Depending on where you live, the Government can take about half of the taxes.

Now suppose that you have a monthly take home 3000.

Your mortgage (or rent) is 1400.00 per month.

Let’s also allow for high interest debts (credit cards, auto loans, personal loans, etc.) of a total of 3000.00.

If we run this through a debt calculator, we see that your estimated monthly repayments of loan are $ 1,490 which is equivalent to 49.7% of your monthly income available. You will find that this is a dangerously high. Most likely, running of these numbers, you’ll find that you’re spending about 3% of your disposable income only servicing short-term debt.

What does this mean …? If you lose your job the amount of time you have to recover before debt catastrophe is only a few months.

In addition, you’ll have a hard time putting away anything for a rainy day, let alone retire with this high debt service to income ratio.

What is the solution?

It is necessary both to increase your monthly income after taxes, or receive a low-interest loan from a family member or friend.

Is your mortgage coming due?

With interest rates as low as they are, this may present a great opportunity. Exceptionally high interest debts or media come together in a mortgage and pay for an extended period of time, at a lower interest rate.