Get out of Debt, August edition - Page 3

[chely7425]

Well, we had a few unforseen expenses (a cross country move at the last minute due to my husbands freaking out... hopefully he gets his act together soon) but we DID pay off 1500 dollars of debt with his bonus We have about 11,000 left to tackle (bad, I know) but with him deploying and me staying with my parents we will have 1000-1200 dollars a month to throw at it (possibly more) so by Aug/Sep 2011 we should be CC debt free!!

[eirual]

Still financially stressed here. I got a job, but until my ECE equivelancy clears I'm making minimum wage and back to working at a daycare (an awesome one, but a FT teaching job would be DREAMY right about now). Still having tenant troubles so paying our rent and our mortgage along with moving expenses, tuition, and books means our savings are back down to practically nothing.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to warm up to the idea of student loans to save our tails. DH has applied for them and may even be receiving a $10,000 grant (I find that hard to believe and I certainly won't rely on it 'til I see it....I don't get it...).

We were soooo close to BS 3, but it looks like we're right back to BS1. BoooO!

[Zamber]

Hello I am new as well to Dave Ramsey. I just finished listening to his Total Money Makeover audio book, and I really enjoyed it. I just aquired a really large wallet and plan on making pretty envelopes tonight for my cash system based on this project: http://kelleighratzlaff.com/featured...nd-a-tutorial/

We are definately in Pre-babystep 1. We already have had the extras gone for a long time now, but at the end of the day I still don't bring enough home to cover the bills and eat (FIL has been helping, but I want to eliminate that). So I have been job hunting and looking into training for a different better paying career (Basically the only way to "throw dynamite into the tree logs" to get the $ flowing again. I am also planing to give selling plasma a try.). Right now DH goes to school full time, I work full time, and we switch off caring for DS to avoid child care costs (which is a challenge having already brought us down to 1 vehicle. No car payments thankfully, otherwise we would be totally screwed.). We do have some CC debt (3 cards, about $3,300 total. It would help tremendously if they were gone), and to date DH is racking up some serious student loan debt ( We might not be able to commit to stop borrowing in this area unfortunately until he finishes school.). However, now with a game plan, I am not as freaked out. I know it is going to take a while to save up an EF and snowball down our debt, but I know we can do this. This is going to be an interesting change too because I am so used to using a debit card all the time (I almost never have cash). It will also help DH to be more involved in the finances since currently I handle everything because he is not comfortable with handling money (he wants to help but he has it in his head that math is difficult for him. However, seeing the $ physically and knowing how long that has to last might help him gain confidence in that area so the responsibility can be 50/50).

Well, that is us in a nut shell financially. I do have one question though for those of you partnered up - do you and your DP each have their own separate envelope system, or do you both work from one? I am trying to figure out how that would work when we don't have much to put in the envelopes to begin with, let alone two sets. Thanks!

[dagny.galt]

Originally Posted by Zamber

Well, that is us in a nut shell financially. I do have one question though for those of you partnered up - do you and your DP each have their own separate envelope system, or do you both work from one? I am trying to figure out how that would work when we don't have much to put in the envelopes to begin with, let alone two sets. Thanks!

Well, ours is set up a bit differently than most, simply because my DH works and pretty much lives out of town during the week, and only comes home on weekends right now. I am the "nerd" and write/edit the budget, pay the bills, and manage pretty much everything but the actual income-earning part. DH has veto power on everything, and has to agree to the budget, but I'm "in charge".

On any given payday (weekly, for us) DH's check is direct deposited. He pulls out a certain amount of cash at an ATM for his travel expenses (trailer lot rent), vehicle and gas expenses, grocery money, and blow money. Those are his "envelopes", though he only puts the grocery and truck/gas money in actual physical envelopes.

The rest of the household envelopes are only in one set, even if DH is home. Currently, we have Grocery & Restaurant, Clothes - DH, Clothes -- me & boys, Gifts (all), Blow (mine), and School (we homeschool). For now, during BS 2, that's all we plan on having.


I'd suggest that you figure out who the "primary shopper" is for certain budget items. Are you usually the grocery shopper, or is your partner, or is it 50/50? That will decide who would have the envelope. The same for gifts -- who tends to buy them most? Clothes could obviously be separated by person, and blow money would have a separate envelope for each of you. It takes time up front to figure out, and you may have to adjust later, but if you think about it, you should be able to find a starting point and adjust from there.

[ltlmrs]

I've been lurking on these threads for so long, it's time to jump in. You ladies have been so inspiring and unwittingly been providing me with some much needed support.

DH and I have been married for over three years and have never had income that is enough to cover our bills until now. DH was debt free, but I had CCs because although I had a great income while single, I lived beyond my means. So, after having planned to get out of debt from the beginning and only getting into more debt, we finally have the ability to actually do it. That is, of course, if this company renews his contract (it's full time work with no benefits for 5 months, 1 month off, then they see if they still need his position and renew for another five months and repeat indefinitely; though the prospect looks good ).

We have a ton of credit card debt and medical bills from Ladybug's birth and pediatrician visits before I discovered home birth and no-vax/no well baby care. The medical bills have no interest. But, the CCs are awful and our credit is shot so no way of lowering the interest, we've tried. Neither one of our cars is ours and we're not making the payments, otherwise we'd sell one of them.

We like DR and plan on doing the baby steps , but because the nature of DH's work is still unstable we are first focusing on building up a savings fund of 3 months: 2 months of planned no income and 1 month actual EF so that we don't miss any more payments and/or have to borrow money to pay for food and rent. Then, we'll really hit the debt snowball. For us, the main concern is to not get into debt again, even if it takes a little while to get out of the debt we have!

So, we're on Babystep 1 right now. There is $40.81 in the EF right now and unfortunately we've got nothing to sell or amputate because we've been so low income that we really don't have anything else to cut. Well, maybe the $9 netflix membership, but that's our only source of entertainment, aside from the library.

In the past month, in anticipation of this first paycheck that DH just got we got a catastrophic medical insurance policy and got on a budget. We're not going to do life insurance right now, but maybe in the near future. We're a bit too afraid of adding new expenses before we're sure that we have enough saved for the lean months.

We're planning on dividing his income that he gets in five months as if he were getting it over six months so that each month we are actually living below our means. I work part time two mornings a week, ironically enough bookkeeping. That income is being used to pay for the medical insurance and various miscellaneous things like haircuts, household expenses that always come up and we forget to budget for, and a little bit of spending money because I've discovered that we just shoot our chances of success by not budgeting at least a little bit of money for things we would like or that are unexpected/forgotten about (library fines, birthday gifts for various parties that Ladybug to which gets invited, etc).

This has turned out way longer than I planned I hope the September thread gets started soon: I'm ready!

[Zamber]

Originally Posted by dagny.galt

Well, ours is set up a bit differently than most, simply because my DH works and pretty much lives out of town during the week, and only comes home on weekends right now. I am the "nerd" and write/edit the budget, pay the bills, and manage pretty much everything but the actual income-earning part. DH has veto power on everything, and has to agree to the budget, but I'm "in charge".

On any given payday (weekly, for us) DH's check is direct deposited. He pulls out a certain amount of cash at an ATM for his travel expenses (trailer lot rent), vehicle and gas expenses, grocery money, and blow money. Those are his "envelopes", though he only puts the grocery and truck/gas money in actual physical envelopes.

The rest of the household envelopes are only in one set, even if DH is home. Currently, we have Grocery & Restaurant, Clothes - DH, Clothes -- me & boys, Gifts (all), Blow (mine), and School (we homeschool). For now, during BS 2, that's all we plan on having.


I'd suggest that you figure out who the "primary shopper" is for certain budget items. Are you usually the grocery shopper, or is your partner, or is it 50/50? That will decide who would have the envelope. The same for gifts -- who tends to buy them most? Clothes could obviously be separated by person, and blow money would have a separate envelope for each of you. It takes time up front to figure out, and you may have to adjust later, but if you think about it, you should be able to find a starting point and adjust from there.

for sharing what you do. I am the primary shopper for just about everything, so I guess I'll have the envelope system for myself for now for us to start. DH rarely if ever buys anything with the exception of gas, and with the gas station being right across the street it will be easy for him to grab a $20 out of the wallet to use. I'll see how september goes before I grab him his own system.

I finished up making the envelpes for my wallet, and it looks so nice (not to mention I used heavy cardstock for most of them, so hopefully they should last a long time). Now comes the waiting game since I get paid wednesday night/thursday early am by direct deposit, but I can't withdraw cash until Friday (Usually I go straight to the store as soon as it hits the account and use my debit card as a credit, so it will be a definate change from my habits to wait for the cash). One thing I do worry about having cash out is it being stolen. Though we fortunately have never had an issue at work with stealing, I will buy a lock for my locker for extra protection. Here's hoping September is a good month!