disneysteve said:
Congratulations on your wedding!
I know you didn't ask for advice, but I don't understand a couple of things in your post. Correct me if I'm misreading this. It sounds like you are saying that even though you are in CC debt, if "extra" money comes in from DH's overtime, you'll put it toward Wants like vacations, cosmetic home stuff and dining out. Why not use his overtime pay to get out of debt sooner? The wants can wait until you are out of debt.
I'm also a little confused by something else. You say he is doubting that you can get out of debt. But you are expecting to not only be out of debt but have enough saved to take a WDW vacation 1 year from now. That sounds like a big difference in expectations.
Advice is always welcome! But trust me, we've talked about this and thought it through very carefully.
My DH confusses me sometimes too!
He's always lived with a certain amount of cc debt, he's having a hard time believing that at some point we won't have any at all. I keep telling him that not only is it possible, but that we ARE going to do it, it is not a point I'll compromise on. He's the type that you have to pound it in to his head for a while for him to come around (his middle name should have been "stubborn") As for the overtime money, while we could put it towards the debt and get it paid down faster, we've decided together that if we put 100% of our extra income towards the debt and have nothing to spend on ourselves, that we will be more likely to quit after a few months and go back to our "evil ways". I'd rather take extra time to pay it down and have a few extra's, than risk burn out.
As for WDW in the fall, first of all that's on condition that we are on track for debt paydown. IF we are, AND we've put enough of the overtime money away to pay for the trip, then and only then will I actually book anything. I feel that a reward to look forward to will be a great incentive to keep on track. Everytime we're tempted to buy something, we'll think "but we want to go to Disney!" Also, through work (I'm a
travel agent), we fly for free and we have 3 days left over on our park passes from the last trip, plus I get a heavy discount on the hotel. Even with meals and spending money, it won't take too much to take a 4 night mini-trip. No, it's not free and yes, we could put that money towards the debt. But without a little carrot along with all that stick, I feel we'd be doomed to failure. Also, most of the "extras" I'm talking about are more along the lines of fixing up the house (not decorating it, but fixing it) and not luxeries. The only "luxery" we'll be buying in the near future is a new tv, as the color is going out on our current one and a fence for the back yard so we don't have to walk the dog this winter.
And let me make it perfectly clear, because sometimes things become lost in all these posts. ALL OF OUR CREDIT CARDS ARE LOCKED UP! Between DH's overtime and our emergency fund, it would have to be a crisis of monumental size for us to even think of pulling them out. No inpulse buys for us, no "but it's 75% off!". We either pay cash or go without. Fortunatly, neither of us are emotional shopers, it was more along the lines of "hey, I want it and I don't want to wait for it". All this will teach us the patience to save up for things that we want. If we deny ourselves EVERYTHING, I think we'll resent it in a hurry and rebel. This is more like getting a kid to eat his brussel sprouts.
The IDEAL thing to do is to go full-tilt and pay down the debt as fast as possible, obviously. But knowing the two of us, we wouldn't make it without a major burn out somewhere down the road. We have no kids (unless you count the dog
) and both an emergency fund and retirement savings, and should some weird allignement of the planets happens and DH doesn't get offered overtime (
) we'd still be able to pay down the debt on schedule, we just won't have the extras. I think this a good, balanced plan that will pay off the debt in a reasonable amount of time while still allowing us to have some things in our lives that we want.
Now, I don't recomend what we are doing for everyone. We are able to do this because 1) a great deal of DH's overtime is guaranteed and 2) even if he doesn't get a minute of OT offered next year, we'd still have enough from our usual pay to not only meet our monthly expenses, but still pay down the CC debt on the SAME schedule we have now, counting the OT. In short, I made our budget to fit our usual take home pay, we are NOT counting on the OT to live off of or to pay down our debt. Many families are, for various reasons, not in this position so this would not work for them.
I do appreciate your thoughts and concerns, there are a lot of people out there that have a lot of denial when it comes to their finances. All I can ask you is to trust me, we have looked at all the numbers, crunched all the data, run all the spread sheets, and looked at our own lifestyle and goals, and this is the best fit for us. If over the next few months (Christmas will be our first big test, I think) we go off track, then the WDW trip is off, and we re-work the budget until we get it figured out. But I think the way we are handeling it is going to give us the best shot at success.
No extra purchases. Strictly sticking to the grocery list. Have eaten out once in the last three weeks. No video rentals, library is doing a good job on our movie fix. All in all, we are a less stressed and a little more happy. I need to clarify about the above post. We decided to set back the $616 left over to make our first payment with. This will allow us to use money we already have to purchase Christmas items. We drastically reduced our list of people to buy for this year. We actually spoke with some friends about our situation and they found it such a relief to know that we wouldn't be buying for their kids so they didn't need to buy for ours. It gets out of hand really quick. So and so is buying for us so we have to buy for so and so. Our DS4 and DDalmost2 will be getting one bigger present and then two smaller presents. We have been able to stick to this so far but it has been hard. I love to shop for my kids! 
Thanks everyone for hanging in there with me! 
