Earning Well but Drowning in Debt...how to dig out?

[Anonymous]

I dont have dept aside from mortgage but I loved reading Dave Ramseys book. He had some good ideas about saving, what to do with extra money, what kind of car you should buy, loan payments etc. Read the book, its life changing.

I agree with other PP's though, get rid of the car with the highest payment and and get an older minivan, let the kids have 1 activity if you like and cancel the others.
Make more food at home and dont eat out as much.

[Anonymous]

Getting rid of the cars may not be an option for OP. If they've only have them for a couple of years and didn't put down much of a downpayment, they may be underwater on the loans and will only be able to get older cars is they roll over the balance of their current loans into the new loans on the older cars, which could leave them with less reliable cars for nearly the same car payment.

[Anonymous]

OP can you post your expenses? Much easier to give you some advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got out of consumer debt that was just over 100k in 18 months. Our income is about 100k higher than yours, but we do have an AuPair so our childcare expenses are pretty high.

The key is we have a pretty low mortgage due to living in Loudoun county. A crutial piece of info missing is what's your housing expenses and equity? Because people telling you to pack your lunch are really good missing it. Packing lunch won't dig you out of this.

What we did was went through every single bill and figured out ways to lower it, we then tracked ALL spending each month and each month fought to lower it. We removed our kids from travel sports ( they survived). We not only paid off the debt, we now have a quickly growing cash savings. We are up to 40k in cash now.

I can't believe how quickly you were able to get out of that kind of debt. How much is your mortgage?

[Anonymous]

I highly recommend MINT - it is free, and keeps you honest!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP can you post your expenses? Much easier to give you some advice.

+1

[Anonymous]

Just worry about linking Mint to all my financial info...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just worry about linking Mint to all my financial info...

Only link mint to spending accounts. Most likely that means just credit cards. We don't link any bank accounts b/c the only bank payed cost is mortgage and that is easy to figure out.

Changing cars is a non-starter, and honestly if you bought minivan or suv for around $30k I wouldn't stress about it. You will be able to carpool kids eventually which may save on childcare costs, just keep them for 10 years! If you bought some Mercedes g wagon, then that would be a poor choice.

I am betting your biggest problem is your mortgage: how much was house, down payment; mortgage payment, and percentage of monthly income going to housing

Read 'all your worth' -- like pp said you won't fix this kind of debt by cutting out coffee; all that does is deplete your reservoir of will power and later on you make a more expensive bad choice. You need to make things automatic so you aren't making regular choices but instead the system protects you from spending too much.

[Anonymous]

mint tells you what you are spending but what you need is an accurate budget!

[Anonymous]

I can't imagine recommending someone who is drowning in debt keep cars for 30k each! That is nuts. Cars are depreciating assets. You need to reduce your monthly outflow so that you can pay down as much as possible on debt.
Do you have an emergency fund now? If so, how many months of expenses is it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mint tells you what you are spending but what you need is an accurate budget!

Mint also has budgeting tools to help you set that budget, and to help you easily keep track of how much you've spent from each budget category throughout the month.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Not looking for a scolding but for advice. Ran up a lot of credit card debt on three maternity leaves that were largely unpaid - hard to pay daycare for two kids while on unpaid leave with a third. And we had to do that or else we would lose our spots. Plus the student loan debt. We have two Hondas 2012 and 2013. Minivan and SUV. Before that I was driving a 2001 Toyota that wouldn't fit three carsears so I had to sell it. Had it over 10 years. We cannot go down to one car because due to our work schedules DH and I alternate drop off and pickup from daycare and aftercare. We do not live in a huge home. In fact, we need a bigger house desperately. Our kids are doubled up in rooms and we are bursting at the seams. Same rowhouse we lived in when we got engaged! Mortgage is $3400/month. Student loans are $1500/month. Credit card bills. Car payments. Daycare and aftercare is $2450/month. We cannot get a nanny for an equivalent price (legally, anyway). I am a fed and the lack of pay increases hasn't helped. But at least job is stable. We do not take luxury vacations and rent expensive homes or take fancy trips. We go to the beach and stay with family. I hardly ever buy clothes and when I do it's at Target/TJ Max or even eBay. I buy kids clothes on eBay or at Target or old navy sale.

The thing is that we definitely aren't living the high life by any means. Our home is very modest and not suitable for the size of our family. Our vacations are budget vacations. Now I am dreading having to pay for summer camps for the older two kids. $450/week per kid for 10 weeks. Ugh.

The kids do a lot of activities. Music together. dance lessons. Soccer. Music lessons.

[Anonymous]

Op again. One thing we did do this year re activities is we asked family members, instead of giving them a bunch of toys for Xmas (since we don't have the space), to sponsor an activity the kids enjoy. One grandparent is sponsoring dance lessons this winter. The other set of grandparents is helping with spring soccer and after school music lessons. That was a win-win. Kids get their activities, we don't get a bunch of unnecessary plastic toys to add to cramped living space.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, we have the same mortgage and no student loans and earn about $200 and I'm stopping at one kid for now and I saved for my unpaid maternity leave so none of it will go on a card.
Are there cheaper summer camps? Your non negotiable expenses are killing you between the mortgage and the childcare and the loans. I honestly don't see a solution beyond moving somewhere cheaper (but that's not really possible with 3 kids)
You may be able to get a nanny cheaper and legally but not by much, I would look at that just in case. When does daycare end?
Kids each get one activity max until you are done with daycare.

[Anonymous]

We have talked about moving out of DC area but hard because our jobs are tied to the area. Have also discussed moving further out to get more space for less money, but that would add significant time into our commute, which DH doesn't want. I would be ok with it bc I can telework a few days per week. But DH cannot.

Sure people can say "oh you shouldn't have had more than one child." That's not an option. We have three kids and can't go back, nor would we!

And we decided we would rather have some credit card debt and siblings than an only child. To me, a sibling is priceless.