No Patti, you are not alone!

“Ya know, we (all 3 of us) are scarily alike in our situations……I am so glad I am not alone.”

These snippets from a comment left by Patti on yesterday’s post really struck a chord with me. She is 100% completely right! When my husband and I embarked on this journey to get out of debt, I felt very much alone. The majority of blogs seemed to be written by people far younger than us. Even most of those doing their debt free screams on the Dave Ramsey show seemed to be the younger crowd. God bless them for being smarter than us. If we could turn back the clock 20+ years I know we would do things differently but we can’t. We must deal with where we are now and we are. 

What I have, however, come to realize is that although it often feels like we are alone, we really are not! People in the 50+ age bracket do have debt and unfortunately, some of us have a lot of it! While I have zero statistics to back this up, I feel I have something more concrete…hearing it first hand from others our age who are in debt. Let me share just a little from three I know well (names changed to protect their identity!)

1. Bill and Rachel. A couple in their early 60s. They owe $200K+ on their mortgage, have credit card debt and a hefty car loan. Rachel feels they will always have debt and even goes as far as saying mortgage debt is good debt for tax purposes.
2. Harry and Denise. A couple in their late 50s. Harry works with my husband and says he will never be able to afford to quit working as they still have mortgage debt and imply that they also have auto loans.
3. Peter and Jan. A couple both turning 65 this year. They took Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace course many years ago. Less than a year ago they also took on a bigger mortgage. The house needs a lot of work which Jan says they can’t currently afford to do. Thankfully no other debt, but Jan also says Peter will need to continue working several more years.

While obviously, I don’t know everything about the finances of these friends, what they have shared with me is alarming. In all three of these cases, debt continues to be part of their lives. Scarier yet is that unless they get into attack mode, this debt will no doubt follow them into what is supposed to be their golden retirement years. While obviously, I can’t point fingers because my husband and I are also carrying a boat load of debt, our story doesn’t need to (and won’t!) end that way. Why? Because we finally drew that line in the sand and said ENOUGH!