It's so easy to pay off debt...... when you have money!
I was reading the debt section of a financial forum site quite a bit until I just got tired of reading all the ridiculousness. Someone would post that they are in trouble financially with credit card debt and when asked to post the specifics so folks could help, they post stuff like $30,000 in CC, incomes of $90k and $125k for the husband, 2 $40k cars, $500k homes along with the expensive summer home, private schools, expensive private lessons for this or that for the kids.... It was ridiculous.
I'm with aduck126. We bought a house, which did have appliances, but they were original to the 1968 built house. The refridgerator didn't have a handle on it, it had a foot pedal to open it. The washing machine instruction manual had "Whirlpool, the appliance of the 70's!" on the cover and used a <gasp> 23 gallons of water or something like that. Not good when my wife grew up with well problems where they all couldn't even take a shower in the mornings or they would run the well dry.
We also had a baby a month after buying the house. All was good the first couple of years, we did use the CC to buy replacement appliances, but then the beginnings of the economy crash started. The economy crashed in the late 2000's for the well off folks, but for the normal folks, it started much earlier. The early 2000's is where the corporate greed caught up resulting in smaller and smaller income increases for the working folks with higher and higher rising prices. All of a sudden, not only did we need to pay off the appliances we bought, but now could not afford food and heat in the winters, car insurance, car repairs, etc.
While it seemed that everyone else in the world were sending their kids to be raised in daycare, and buying new cars and cell phones and the latest and greatest of everything, we were falling deeper and deeper. But, we just couldn't fathom waking our toddler children up at 5 am and sending them off to other people so we could both work and "keep up with the Joneses". Then 2008 hit and just the cost of heating oil alone buried us to where we thought we could never dig out. Our 2008 heating bill was $800 per month compared to $200 the previous year.
Well, now both kids are in school and Mom isn't needed as much at home by the kids. So, my wife went back to work at the same place she left 9 years ago. 1-disneyfan stated they were paying off $25k in CC with a "
". You're not alone. I have roughly that much as well, but we are just starting to pay it off. We caught up with everything else and thought we could actually go on our first family vacation. Our Disney trip started out with just a trip to the beach, but then it looked like a few days taking the kids to Disneyworld would cost about the same. Of course, the Disney trip has grown a few extra days from our original plans, but we were able to pay for it in cash. (In actuality, the money for the trip was used on a high interest CC and a 0 interest CC was used for the trip, so it is basically like we transfered money from one card to the other and paid for the trip with the cash...)
Of course, the trip was all planned out months in advance, and once the kids know they are going to Disney, there is no backing out. After everything was booked, more unexpected happened and where we thought we'd be caught up by Thankgiving last year, it wasn't until this past month that we got caught up with bills.
So, what are we tackling? Well, I just blew a head gasket in the old ancient work runner car, so I tackled replacing that myself this weekend to a tune of saving about $700. I was quoted around $800 to have it repaired and it cost me less than $100 in parts to do it myself.
We are all caught up on the house payment, oil prices were back to normal for the 2009-10 winter, car payment is caught up, Disney trip is paid for, credit card payments are being made, so now we have some extra and we are using that extra for getting vacation supplies for the 2nd week of June. After our trip, I should be able to take care of all bills and the wife's paycheck should be able to all go towards the CC bills and the non-monthly stuff like the heating oil and car insurance. Thus, I believe we could pay off our CCs in less than 2 years if we stuck to it.
and paying off the credit union Visa. We've got it down from $4300 to $2500.
For me to keep focused on our finances, I have been watching Dave Ramsey and Til Debt do us Part. It just shows me we're not alone in this debt battle.
