please ignore

[C.Ann]

If you're that strapped, you should probably look at getting rid of the cable tv because it really isn't a necessity..

Also, how many vehicles do you have now? If you still have 4, then you have 2 too many.. Perhaps your DH could sell the brand new dump truck and purchase something you can afford for the time being? If nothing else, the insurance would be much cheaper..

I'm also confused as to why one or both of you can't get some part-time work throughout a 7-day week.. If nothing else, how about holding a garage sale and slapping the proceeds on a bill?

And if you have any vacations planned, it goes without saying that you should probably cancel them if you're serious about getting out of debt..

 

[CarolA]

I am the person who suggeseted a credit counselor and the ONLY reason I did is that this is a repeat.... To me it appears that the "do it myself" plan is not working. Also, the loan situation sounds a little bizarre, but it sounds like these are all non-secured personal loans. Those have a higher interest rate then others simply because there is a higher risk. Folks will pay the mortgage and the car first since the bank will take them.

I am not sure what is going on here, but I am also not sure that OP has gotten real with herself and her family. She posted almost a year ago about this same mess and has had two Disney vacations since then???

God helps those that help themselves and sometimes that means you need professional help!

 

[Fonty]

I'm confused. I followed the link back to your September post and read with interest. Believe me, I totally understand. We 'hit bottom' last August. With the help of God and Dave Ramsey, we're climbing out of the debt hole. We haven't charged anything since July 04. This is a big deal for us. We pay cash for everything. It will still take us several years to be debt free BUT at least we aren't sinking further into debt.

All of that is to stay I understand where you're coming from.

What I don't understand is in your Sept post sig line you list a WDW vacation to be taken in October and then again in December (the second one for 10 days). Did you take those? How did you pay for it? I don't know how close you live to WDW or if you have APs or anything, but was just wondering.

I'm not trying to be snooty. You posted all that info and asked for help.

 

[tlbwriter]

After reading the previous thread, I think it would help if you gave us an update... are you still putting money in your husband's not-secret secret account? Do you still have the 4 cars? Is your daughter still going to outside activities in the city 4 days a week? It's hard to give suggestions when we don't know where you currently stand.

 

[thelittlemermaid]

I was doing the samething for our mortgage payments. The company that my mortgage company uses would take half of our mortgage payment out of our account every 2 weeks {did that make any sense?}. Anyways, they were charging us $7 a pop to take it our for us. This went on for a year until I wised up and did the math, WOW!!! They sure were getting alot of extra money from us for doing nothing. I could do the samething they were doing for free and save that money for us and put it toward something else.

There for the longest time DH wasn't having any withholding being taken out of his check {for taxes}. He was claiming single and 0 dependents, plus $5 extra for state and federal. I finally had him wise up and he has switched that. He didn't switch it to where he could cause he's afraid if he does it to much that he will have to pay in at the end of the year and doesn't want to do that. As for his 401K I am trying to work on him about that and to lower the withholding, but for right now he won't hear of it.

 

[crisi]

There for the longest time DH wasn't having any withholding being taken out of his check {for taxes}. He was claiming single and 0 dependents, plus $5 extra for state and federal. I finally had him wise up and he has switched that. He didn't switch it to where he could cause he's afraid if he does it to much that he will have to pay in at the end of the year and doesn't want to do that.

I claimed single 0 last year. So did my husband. We have two children. Plus we took out extra money.

Wrote a $15,000 check to the IRS in April. Be careful.

 

[dvcgirl]

crisi,

I thought it seemed familiar too....thanks for finding the thread.

 

[westjones]

One thing I wanted to mention is for you to still find time to enjoy your time with your family. Going through money problem can be very difficult. When my twins were born, we decided that I would stay home with them instead of working, so we went from 2 incomes to 1, which was a big adjustment.

We worked on paying off debt, and while the girls were babies we didn't do much at all for entertainment except watch TV and go for walks. Once the girls were around the age of 2 or 3, we decided we wanted to do more outings with them but we were still working on debt and keeping our expenses down. So we started looking for all the FREE or near free things going on in our community.

For DH and I, I found the videos at the library and started checking out all those movies we had missed over the past 3 years.

For our family, we went to festivals and kids programs all over town that didn't cost a thing. We went to concerts in the park, Farm Days, hikes in the state park, movies outdoors, trick or treat at the museum, sled rides at the gardens, etc. All of these were free things in our community.

My point is, this time you have as a family is special, and even though you are going through a rough time, you need to still find way to enjoy yourselves.

Actually some of my best memories of my DH and I hiking at the park with my kids and sitting on a blanket eating a picnic while we watch the local Shakespeare group perform.

Whether you are at WDW or a state park, you can make special family memories. You don't have to spend a fortune to do it. WDW will be there in a few years when you find yourself in a new financial position.

Good Luck, and enjoy your family. Take each day a step at a time and look forward to a brighter tomorrow!

DJ

 

[Blueberry]

Any family who could help you out. Say a Grandfather or DAd who could pay off these loans and you could pay a lesser amount to them (with some interest until it is paid off). Family often will help if they know how bad a situation is at your home...if they can of course.

I think one thing you can do is stop thinking what you CAN'T DO...and start thinking in a matter of what you can do, no matter how much you might not want to do it...We were a military family and we had to make a lot of hard choices over the years (you do not get rich in the military). We had to give up doing a lot of things and having things at times others did, just because we had kids and we had to do it.

I bought a brand new car once, kept it six months and turned around and sold it for a six year old car which would not drain us dry on payments and insurance..My folks thought us crazy but who cares they were not paying for it.

You mentioned you got a great house deal, do you have a second mortgage?? If you don;t maybe you can find a second mortgage to consolidate these bills into one monthly payment which would be tax deductible if it is a second mortgage.

You can sell your home, good deals will come along again..rent an apt a bit farther out and use the extra cash to pay off the loans each month. Who cares if it does not look good, or someone says something about you...talk happens anyway, you can never please everyone.

I do not mean to sound harsh..just my take on reality here. I hope you can work things out..just remember creditors can make your life bad, but they cannot come shoot you...

 

[floridagirrl2]

I did cut car ins and saved a lot! We make coffee from home and we brings meals to work. In our area, we would never be able to sell our home and buy a smaller one, a smaller one would cost what we owe on this one. We did great in the house dept.

It shouldn't matter that a smaller house would cost what you owe on your current house. Let's say you owe $200,000 on your current house but it would sell for $300,000. If you sold your house for $300,000, you would pay off your current house, still have $100,000, and could buy a smaller home for $200,000. You could put $100,000 down and only be paying a $100,000 mortgage (rather than a $200,000 mortgage).

OR you could pay off the current mortgate, use $80,000 to pay off debt, and put $20,000 down on a $200,000 house. You would still be paying off a smaller mortgage PLUS you would have paid off your debt.

Of course, if you have borrowed against your house with a 2nd mortgage or have refinanced and taken out equity, OR have just recently bought the house and so the market hasn't gone up enough to give you equity, then this won't work for you.

If rents are less than mortgages in your area, again you might be better off selling your house and renting a place for awhile and using the difference between your mortgage payment and your rent to pay off your bills.

It sounds like there are lots of reasons you can't take the advice of people on this thread, AND you have been unable to come up with solutions on your own. This sounds like you really do need to see a non-profit credit counselor before you get any deeper in debt. Or, if there is really no way out, you may need to declare bankruptcy to be able to put food on your table. That, of course, is not a decision to make lightly and you would definitely want professional advice before making that decision.

 

[EthansMom]

peacefulgirl,

I took a look at your post from Sept. and it doesn't look like you've made much headway in the last 9 months.

I'm not being judgemental, but there are some basic things you have to understand about finances if you want to fix your situation. The most important strategy to a healthy financial future is: You must spend less than you make.

Sure the little purchases add up, but based on your old thread, you have made some major purchases that most of us wouldn't consider "affordable": you own 4 automobiles for 2 adults; your daughter goes to private school and attends 2 afterschool activities; your DH bought a pool table, pool, and home improvements with his "free" money...

When others recommended that you trim down your DH's "free" money you basically responded that your DH "deserved" the money. But you and your family deserve to have money for your groceries more than your DH deserves money to spend however he wants.

You've gone on two trips to WDW since you posted last September. When DH and I had money problems, we didn't go on any trips.

You need to make some real changes in the way you think about money and "stuff" if you want to improve your current situation.

You want some answers: Sell the beater car and dump truck. Use the money to pay back your home equity loan. You'll also save money on registration and insurance. Tell DD that she needs to pick just one afterschool activity. Severely trim your DH's personal spending money, and use the "trimmed" money to start an emergency savings account. If you've reached the 2 years on your cell phone agreement, get rid of it and get a prepaid phone -- my prepaid costs $25 every 3 months to keep it charged with minutes in case of emergency.

I hope this helps.

 

[hsmamato2]

And... go to www.daveramsey.com - l plenty of great info. there for getting"real" about taking financial control of our own lives...

 

[C.Ann]

peacefulgirl,

I took a look at your post from Sept. and it doesn't look like you've made much headway in the last 9 months.

I'm not being judgemental, but there are some basic things you have to understand about finances if you want to fix your situation. The most important strategy to a healthy financial future is: You must spend less than you make.

Sure the little purchases add up, but based on your old thread, you have made some major purchases that most of us wouldn't consider "affordable": you own 4 automobiles for 2 adults; your daughter goes to private school and attends 2 afterschool activities; your DH bought a pool table, pool, and home improvements with his "free" money...

When others recommended that you trim down your DH's "free" money you basically responded that your DH "deserved" the money. But you and your family deserve to have money for your groceries more than your DH deserves money to spend however he wants.

You've gone on two trips to WDW since you posted last September. When DH and I had money problems, we didn't go on any trips.

You need to make some real changes in the way you think about money and "stuff" if you want to improve your current situation.

You want some answers: Sell the beater car and dump truck. Use the money to pay back your home equity loan. You'll also save money on registration and insurance. Tell DD that she needs to pick just one afterschool activity. Severely trim your DH's personal spending money, and use the "trimmed" money to start an emergency savings account. If you've reached the 2 years on your cell phone agreement, get rid of it and get a prepaid phone -- my prepaid costs $25 every 3 months to keep it charged with minutes in case of emergency.

I hope this helps.

-------------------------------

Great post - excellent ideas!

The only thing I would like to add to it is that I think for this particular individual borrowing money from a relative (as someone else suggested) would be an absolute disaster in the making.. This is a problem that she and her DH need to work through alone - or with the help of a credit counselor..

 

[CarolA]

OK. Has anyone noticed she has disappeared? Maybe we scared her off?

 

[C.Ann]

OK. Has anyone noticed she has disappeared? Maybe we scared her off?

-------------------

Well - she may be embarrassed - but if she really wants help, then she has to face up to the reality of her situation..

 

[Blueberry]

-------------------------------

Great post - excellent ideas!

The only thing I would like to add to it is that I think for this particular individual borrowing money from a relative (as someone else suggested) would be an absolute disaster in the making.. This is a problem that she and her DH need to work through alone - or with the help of a credit counselor..

I am the one who suggested it, as consolidation loan only, not as free money A suggestion would be relative pays off loans and they never see a dime of the money. A last ditch effort to get rid of the bills...A last step to avoid bankruptcy.

However, having four cars, the private school, after school activities, big house, trips to WDW have to go or no headway will be made. Financial Peace cannot just be lip service, it involves serious work and serious choices. Some of it may be embarrassing to some people to go down the ladder instead of up, but it is a no choice situation if you want to recover and improve your financial situation.

Just my two cents on this is all....

 

[Nik's Mom]

Not that it's any help or consolation but you are so not alone!

A lot of people are struggling to manage money and finances right now. I stopped working six years ago to take care of an ailing mom and eventually, the money does run out. You never know how long illness or unemployment may last. I'll be tapping retirement funds here soon unless I can make a freelance writing and editing business fly. But, I also believe God has led me to this point and He won't desert me now.

Great outlook on things! I can relate. I quit my job a year ago to care for our son who we believed to be autistic. It turns out he is autistic and being at home this year, I've seen huge improvements in working with him. Money has been tight at times, but God has saw us through it.
To the op, I totally agree that you need to stop those extra mortgage and car payments. We did the same thing when we first bought our house, but once we had kids, those payments were too tough and we refinanced. We now have an even lower interest rate (5%). You might want to consider that. Before considering selling your house, be sure to check rent prices in your city. We thought of selling when I decided to quit working, until we realized that rent in our working class area was just as high as our mortgage.
Good luck to you!

Darn, I responded to this thread before I read through the entire thing! O.k, it sounds like this op is having a hard time coming to grip. Hey, a lot of us have been there, so I'm not going to pour salt on her wounds. I just want to suggest the credit counseling. I have a friend who was on the verge of bankruptcy. Someone over on the communities board suggested credit counseling and I believe that is exactly what my friend is going to do. Thanks to the Dis!
Also, someone mentioned the op is planning another trip. If this is true, I say that needs to be cancelled. I know it's hard, but it needs to be done
Sorry to the op if people are hurting your feelings. Trust me, you can get through this. It will take a a while to get out of debt, but if disciplined, you can do it.

 

[etwinchester]

Claiming married at a higher single rate and 0 dependant will take MORE out of your pay. The more dependants you claim, the less they take out thus giving you more money in your weekly paycheck.

This year I decided to claim a little higher so we'd have more money weekly. We always get back a good amount so I knew we would be safe. There our programs online that help you figure it out if you can't do it on your own.

 

[dvcgirl]

-------------------

Well - she may be embarrassed - but if she really wants help, then she has to face up to the reality of her situation..

I'd have to say that after reading a thread that was nearly verbatim to this one a year ago, that the OP doesn't understand the gravity of the situation. I feel for her, I really do. Sometimes when you're sinking in quicksand well, you're the last one to realize it. She believes that she can pull herself and her family out of the mess that they're in. I'll say it again...PG, you need professional help. You need to get yourself and your husband to a credit counselor ASAP.....before you end up in bankruptcy and lose your home.

The sad thing is that PG's story is becoming more and more common in our country right now. Living above one's means is all the rage these days. It's easy to see how it's happened. I mean, anyone venturing to WDW this summer will see that the parks are positively packed. There aren't too many middle class kids out there who haven't been to Disney these days...there's a real pressure for parents to keep up. Think about when we were all kids. There was school sports, brownies and boy scouts...today, it's insane.

I'd venture a pretty safe guess that there is a lot more spending going on with our OP that we didn't hear about. It appears that there were two trips to WDW after that round of "requests for help", neither of which should have been taken. And no amount of reasons for taking it make those trips a necessity.

Right now banks are loaning money to anyone and everyone. The economy has improved, but I do believe that much of what is holding it up right now is the fact that people are using their homes like ATM machines. Can't pay your bills? Pull out more equity. Need a new pool? Pull out more equity. Trip to Disney....pull out just a little more. This is the road to financial ruin.

I sincerely hope that you get the help that you really need.....

 

[CarolA]

Right now banks are loaning money to anyone and everyone. The economy has improved, but I do believe that much of what is holding it up right now is the fact that people are using their homes like ATM machines. Can't pay your bills? Pull out more equity. Need a new pool? Pull out more equity. Trip to Disney....pull out just a little more. This is the road to financial ruin.

I sincerely hope that you get the help that you really need.....

And the worst part is in LOTS of cased you are pulling out equity you don't really have. I get offers all the time to borrow up to 125% or 150% of my homes value. HUH? And then if something horrid happened to me and I had to sell where would I be... upside down.

I walked out on a job a few years ago because I worked for an IDIOT (every other word I can think of is banned!) I had plenty of money to see me through and a mortgage payment that was VERY small. However, I figured if worse came to worse I could always sell the house for the outstanding debt. (For that it would have sold to an investor in about an hour LOL!) I admit that would be the last straw, but I would have done it rather then had my credit ruined. I was lucky and found a good job well before I even made a big dent in the cash on hand! But I did wonder what folks do who have borrowed 150% of their equity. I noticed LOTS of foreclosures when I was househunting in Atlanta this spring......