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Climbing out of the debt hole... Anybody wanna join? - Page 3

post #41 of 204
6/1/06 at 5:42pm
We are finally seeing light. We have paid off all credit cards. I have kept one with an incredibly low limit and low interest. It's an emergency card. It's paid off right away. We pay cash for everything. It has been a long stressful road. To do it we moved to a tiny apartment for the past 2 years. We are G-d Willing moving out in August. We have been living well below our means for the past two years and it has helped so much.
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post #42 of 204
6/1/06 at 10:23pm
Thread Starter 
How great to see so many new faces in there!

Well, I am sorry we are all here because that means we have debt but it is SPETACULAR that we are commited to getting out of it.
post #43 of 204
6/2/06 at 9:22pm
So we have 3 cc to pay off and a car loan. Actually, we have 2 car loans but only one is pay off doable. So which one should we concentrate on paying off first? The cc has higher interest but the truck would be faster to pay off and then we could use the monthly payment to add to the ccs. Whatcha think?

I've heard that if you pay off ccs you should still leave them open...at least some. If you have open credit but little to no balance it improves your credit score whereas if you have no cc on your report it lowers your score.
post #44 of 204
6/2/06 at 10:44pm
Credit cards first. They can be jacked up overnight to outrageous interest rates for no real reason. You're in no such danger with the car loans.
post #45 of 204
6/3/06 at 7:33am
Thread Starter 
Kleine Hexe, I'd definitetly try to pay off CC debt first.
post #46 of 204
6/4/06 at 6:46pm
Count me in here.

We have one cc to pay off; we just stopped using it and moved the balance to a lower interest rate card with the intention of paying it off as soon as we sell our extra car.

After that we will have our 15-yr mortgage (brand-new as we just refinanced) and one car loan. We plan to do some pretty extensive work on our house and sell it in about three years (give or take)...then buy some land and build mortgage-free at the fastest speed we can manage. With four kids it won't be easy, but I know it will be worth it. We want to be debt-free and on our way to increased self-sufficiency.

We've been focusing a lot on keeping our spending strictly within our income. It used to seem so easy to pull out the cc for a birthday gift or car repair. We'll keep it for emergencies but hope never to need it. I'm planning (and tracking) my spending a lot more carefully than I used to, and it's helping.

We pulled ourselves out a huge debt hole once before, and we will do it again - not quite as huge a hole this time, thankfully. DH was unemployed for about a year one year ago and it really took a toll on our debt load. Time to right things.

I'm rereading Your Money Or Your Life and finding it very inspiring. Also Mortgage-Free by Rob Roy.

Good luck, everyone!
post #47 of 204
6/4/06 at 10:48pm
I just wanted to say I know what the "knot in your stomache when you think about it" feels like. Me and dh are in financial hell right now and there is just not enough money. May all of us have a change of luck!
post #48 of 204
6/4/06 at 11:05pm
We're also trying to climb out of the debt hole. We have $13,000 in credit card debt (part of which is our car note that we transferred to the credit card for the lower interest rate), and we have $40,000 in student loan debt! Our parents didn't help us out at all with school, so we had to foot the bill ourselves. We are going to be chipping away at our debt, albeit very sloooowwwly. My husband just got a promotion that is a salary increase of $7,000 a year so we are going to try to continue living on our current budget, and use the excess to pay off some of our debts.
post #49 of 204
6/6/06 at 9:27am
Thread Starter 
Good to see more people join us.

How is everybody doing?

We are holding up all-right. We were able to free up some money by trading in the car and taking on car payments for the same amount but for a longer period of time. The money was spent on zeroing a CC account (well, not actually zero it as we still have 6 payments of loans drawn on that card to meet previous late payments but zero the current astronomical balance. Did that make sense? : ).

The BIG challenge will be receiving houseguests (a family of 4) for a month. They will travel halfway across the world to stay with us for 30 days. We are already getting twitches thinking about all the extra expenses we will incur in during this time. Besides the obvious, there will be numerous daytrips, higher electricity bill, groceries, etc. No matter how much your guests help out, you still end up spending a fortune. I speak from experience, we have visitors from abroad at least once a year for an equal period of time.

Any suggestions for free or inexpensive things to do? Between us we will have 3 kids who are 2,3 and 5 years old and ACTIVE!
post #50 of 204
6/6/06 at 10:03am
Ugh, I know what you mean about house guests. I also have guests visit from abroad for 3 to 4 weeks at a time. It's nice to have family visit but it can break your budget and really set you back! I had managed to save $700 on the side for debt, and then in Feb we had house guests. That $700 disappeared in 3 weeks!
post #51 of 204
6/6/06 at 5:21pm
We're in debt too.
Does anybody know if it better to try to build an emergnacy funds saving account and then tackle the debt or work on eliminating the debt first?

Pam
post #52 of 204
6/6/06 at 5:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MamaPam
We're in debt too.
Does anybody know if it better to try to build an emergnacy funds saving account and then tackle the debt or work on eliminating the debt first?

Pam
I would say it would depend on your situation. If your credit is in good standing and in emergency you could either apply for credit or use existing credit (I know, won't help get out of debt...but if its truly an EMERGENCY then its available) I would just tackle the debt and not worry about buiding an e-fund. However, if your credit is bad and your cards are maxed out and credit would not be an option in an emergency I would set up a relief fund of some sort and then tackle the debt. JMO
post #53 of 204
6/6/06 at 5:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MamaPam
We're in debt too.
Does anybody know if it better to try to build an emergnacy funds saving account and then tackle the debt or work on eliminating the debt first?

Pam
I'm far from an expert, but we're working through The Financial Peace Planner by Dave Ramsey after hearing more than one recommendation here on MDC and a few other places, and he recommends saving an emergency fund first, $1000. The logic is so you won't reach for your cc when you hit a hard spot and get into more debt and trouble.

In theory, I agree, but it seems like an impossible task for us right now when everything goes to just making the minimum payments.
post #54 of 204
6/6/06 at 8:08pm
Well we heard back from the loan people - no go. No consolidation loan and no van loan. So we're stuck. We don't fit into our vehicle but owe $10 000 on it & couldn't get enough to pay it off if we tried to sell it (and hubby has to have it for work.) I guess we'll just keep chipping away at our debt and I'll get used to staying home.
post #55 of 204
6/6/06 at 9:40pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by hsingmamato3
Well we heard back from the loan people - no go. No consolidation loan and no van loan. So we're stuck. We don't fit into our vehicle but owe $10 000 on it & couldn't get enough to pay it off if we tried to sell it (and hubby has to have it for work.) I guess we'll just keep chipping away at our debt and I'll get used to staying home.


I hope tomorrow will be a little brighter for you.
post #56 of 204
6/6/06 at 9:49pm
That stinks. I'm sorry.
post #57 of 204
6/7/06 at 6:20pm
Thread Starter 
How's everyone?
post #58 of 204
6/7/06 at 7:00pm
crappy... not only did our truck blow all the headgaskets, plus the oil pump, but the mechanic told DH that the bearings and drive train is all shot too.. nothing like throwing an entire freaking paycheque on that truck! sigh.. we could have paid off our taxes... about 3000 bucks worth!
post #59 of 204
6/7/06 at 9:37pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by nym
crappy... not only did our truck blow all the headgaskets, plus the oil pump, but the mechanic told DH that the bearings and drive train is all shot too.. nothing like throwing an entire freaking paycheque on that truck! sigh.. we could have paid off our taxes... about 3000 bucks worth!
Sweet Fancy Moses! That's a lot of money, yes. Yikes.
Does your husband need the truck for work?
post #60 of 204
6/7/06 at 9:43pm
Yikes! That's a lot of repair.

Why does it seem that just when you're about to get a break something happens? Like when we received our tax refund for over 3K and we were going to send it to our cc, and just then our property taxes and home insurance went up. We had to use that $3,000 for that instead. Gotta love living where hurricanes can get ya. :
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