San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

I'm curious to know how much debt the piggingtons carry. Please include all forms: credit card, mortgage, student loans, etc.

Not sure what this question will answer. Debt alone isn't an indication of financial health.

It's not a question about financial health, it's a question about how much debt one has. Just a curiosity, that's all.

Should we include the roughly $30,000/person portion of our $#!^-poor "managed" national budget deficit?

I agree with FLU that the results of this poll are meaningless.

Then don't read it and move on. Live up to your name. No need to come in and shit on the post.

Wow, what is up with the hostility? Why jump on me and not FLU? I am just agreeing with another poster that debt looked at in a vaccum is not very meaningful.

It's friday. So I'll comment. It's probably not what you said, it's how you said it.

I guess my question was more curious about what the question was going to answer. I guessed it was for determining financial stability/etc, but apparently it's not.

I think your post came across injecting an opinion (this poll is *useless*). I suppose you probably meant you where trying to understand how this poll would going to be useful, but I guess in written words, "meaningless" conveys more negativity.

bahhh. It's just a board post. who cares.

You could have phrased the question, what is your debt to asset ratio? Bill Gates could have $10 million in CC debt, but to him that would be nothing.

mid-month my debt is thousands, end-of-month it is 0 so I can't even answer the question without more specifics.

debt/asset ratio or net worth I can answer. poll those!

My wife and I have pile of student loans we pay off as slowly as possible. We have six times that in down-payment fund. Not sure how just the raw debt number matters.

I think this is interesting in that debt during a deflationary period is really tough on the borrower.

I have a mortgage payment and no other debt.

Ray Lucia had a great segment on last week of a poll about what strangers talk to each other about. For instance x% of people said they will talk to a stranger about weather... or y% said that they would talk to a stranger about sex... It was staggering how small the number was about debt but it was WAY less then all the other categories.

Poll needs to clarify how exactly this is calculated. I could have a mortgage outstanding of $200,000 but my home worth around $500,000 so that is not exactly debt but rather I have a $300,000 positive equity.

I think you should rephrase the question as debt = net assets - net liabilities :)

Anyways in my case I have no liabilities at all $0. And my assets are just around $100,000. I'm only 34 so I think I'm doing good so far. I live very conservatively and save as much as I can for a rainy day, a totally foreign concept in this country.

I agree with kev. Amount of debt is meaningless if it is all covered with assets. I abstain.

So judging from the numbers so far, it looks like most Piggs don't have a mortgage, either from having their house paid off or by renting and waiting. I'm in the latter camp.

None. Both cars are paid for, and I pay-off the credit card soon after a purchase. The wife and I try to live as debt free as possible, but realize that buying something like a house will carry a substantial debt for many years.

What is this poll trying to measure? I cannot tell

afx,

Perhaps a better question would be to ask what is your net worth. There are a lot of calculators available online to estimate a person's financial health, if that is really what you are interested in.

Here are two scenarios:

I have a friend of mine from high school named Matt. Now Matt has zero debt. He now lives in Montana and spends his summers fly fishing and his winters skiing. In the summer he works part time doing some specialized kinds of woodworking but mostly he fishes. He is an extraordinary fly fisherman but has never parlayed that talent into a paying job. In the winter he goes skiing and occasionally teaches skiing to novices. He has no savings, no investments, rents his house and his old 4by4 is paid off. Zero debt though...

Another friend of ours from high school retired from Microsoft at age 36 and he has a ton of debt. House, cars, credit card, etc.. But Keith has just tons of money sitting in investments, tax shelters, equity in his house(bought in silicone valley in 1994) etc, etc. Tons of debt.

I realize that this sounds contrived but it is actually the case of two of my friends from high school that I have recently caught back up with. Given my druthers I would much prefer to have the financial background of Keith despite his debt rather than the financial background of Matt with zero debt.

In any case, I would still prefer to Matt's talent with the trout. :) I think that you are probably looking for a measure of pigg's financial health, n'est pas?