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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bet is that OP went out and bought all 3 kids brand new boots, snow pants, jackets, mittens, hats, new sleds, new shovels just their size and blew $250 because it's snowing and the kids wanted to go outside for 15 minutes

Impossible to buy all of the above for 3 kids for $250.

Agreed, and for the record, my two have been outside for hours and hours. I have the dryer running non stop.not od wet into dry and repeat.

I'm certainly not going to hate on patents who want to warmly clothe their children.

You can warmly clothe your child for much less. I got snow pants for $5 and boots for $3 at a consignment sale. I think that was pp's point.

Get those bargains at a consignment sale/thrift store requires:
1) Being there when the store's open (they often close @ 5)
2) Happening to see something in your kids' sizes -- you won't go 3-for-3, but maybe 1-for-3 and 2-for-3. So then there's 2-3 trips to different stores
3) Beating out Everyone Else for the stuff in your desired sizes and that isn't horribly inappropriate for whatever reason (e.g. something from 1985).

Maybe doable for a SAHM with a preschooler or whose kids are all in school. But a woman working 40+ hours a week is supposed to do her consignment/thrift shopping when, exactly? I hardly think most dual-income families want to spend their weekends combing over thrift stores.

This is something where the time spent looking for bargains can really add up.

Wait, are you kidding? I wrote that. I'm also part of a dual Fed family with same HHI as OP.
People do this. But keep justifying every expense...

How do you have any time with your kids? Do they go with you? We've outsourced housekeeping at every other week because cleaning the house was killing our weekends. For shopping I do almost all online and on sale. I truly don't think you can work 40 ish hours a week and do these frugal habits like scouring through goodwill without a cost to your family time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am really truly baffled and disgusted by the people on here who couldn't say anything more than "you shouldn't have had three kids" or who presume to think we are these upper class wannabees who get 6 year car loans, wear fancy name brand clothes, send our kids to Smithsonian camps, live in some mcmansion we cannot afford in Mclean, and try to keep up with the Joneses. What a bunch of self-righteous mean spirited people! I came on here asking for helpful advice. The shoulda-coulda-woulda bullsh!t just isn't helpful.

Anyone who knows us and sees our lifestyle would never ever make such judgments. Our house is extremely modest and too small for a family of 5, we are the butt of many family jokes, and actually have relatives who won't even visit/stay with us because there is nowhere for them to sleep. We deal with that and don't care, but we are not in a huge unaffordable home. Our rowhouse would probably cost $250k almost anywhere else. Here, it's over $700k. We have done well with our home, and will not sell it to move into a cramped 2 bedroom apartment with three kids. we realize we will be here for a while until we can dig partway out of debt. We drive Hondas for goodness sake, and they are 2012 and 2013, so almost paid off. They are not financed under 6 year loans. I didn't even know there was such a thing.

I do appreciate the advice I got on how to trim back expenses, as well as the recommendations to look at David Ramsey, Michelle, and other experts who will motivate.

I do have a child who is musically gifted. He is not in Kindergarten as other posters have alluded to, but is in older grade in elementary school. It is not some bragging right for us wannabees to flaunt. He has been flagged as gifted by his school, and is playing his chosen instrument at a pre-professional level at a very young age, with just a couple years of training. Elementary school band/orchestra doesn't cut it at this point. Sorry to disappoint you naysayers. We are doing our best to support him. My middle child is graduating form prek and starting K next fall, and my youngest is 3 and has two more years of daycare. That explains the need for two summer camps this summer, and two daycares now. It also explains the need for three carseats/boosters. All three kids still need carseats. We have two dogs as well, so driving a yaris just won't work for our family. We will hopefully have a financial break when DC2 is out of daycare, and can push that toward paying off the loans.

We are both feds and do have job security. We also are highly paid feds (if there is such a thing). We could make more in the private sector, but are not certain we want to sacrifice the job security and long hours. Neither DH nor I have a grand desire to be partners at a law firm and to have that lifestyle (again, we are not the wannabe mclean mcmansion types). We enjoy being parents, our family, and spending time with our kids.

As for camps, I agree that Smithsonian camps are too expensive. Prohibitively so for us. I was using that as an example. We have not yet sent any of our kids to smithsonian camps. We have done local camps through the county and also ymca, and we are planning to do a music camp for DC1 this summer. Even the county/YMCA camps are over $350/week including aftercare. For two kids that's $700/week For cheap camp. We are looking into finding a babysitter instead or sending kids to grandparents further south for part of the summer to help save some money.

We are planning to cash out part of our emergency fund to pay off the CC debt. That will make us feel better and also eliminate the high interest. That has been overwhelming. Was it foolish to use CC for grad school and some maternity leave issues? Yes. I also had some serious medical issues after maternity leave with one pregnancy and had A LOT of medical bills to pay off, e.g., over $8k. That sucked.

Again, I want to thank those of you who provided helpful and productive suggestions. Some extreme. Some not. For those of you who could do nothing but make fun of someone who is trying to get out of the hole... Karma.

At the end of the day you aren't living your financial reality. I was very gifted, as in testing college level in math in middle school. My parents couldn't afford to do a anything about it, no classes or enrichment or private schools. They also couldn't help with college except for I think $5,000 total and not at all with grad school. Now I will have to help them. They are a huge financial burden because they made poor choices and just never earned enough for their lifestyle. Do you really want to not be able to help your kids and then be viewed as a burden by them? Your only saving grace is that you're Feds so you can just retire using the fed retirement plus social security. But your kids will have to take out loans for school for everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bet is that OP went out and bought all 3 kids brand new boots, snow pants, jackets, mittens, hats, new sleds, new shovels just their size and blew $250 because it's snowing and the kids wanted to go outside for 15 minutes

Impossible to buy all of the above for 3 kids for $250.

Agreed, and for the record, my two have been outside for hours and hours. I have the dryer running non stop.not od wet into dry and repeat.

I'm certainly not going to hate on patents who want to warmly clothe their children.

You can warmly clothe your child for much less. I got snow pants for $5 and boots for $3 at a consignment sale. I think that was pp's point.

Get those bargains at a consignment sale/thrift store requires:
1) Being there when the store's open (they often close @ 5)
2) Happening to see something in your kids' sizes -- you won't go 3-for-3, but maybe 1-for-3 and 2-for-3. So then there's 2-3 trips to different stores
3) Beating out Everyone Else for the stuff in your desired sizes and that isn't horribly inappropriate for whatever reason (e.g. something from 1985).

Maybe doable for a SAHM with a preschooler or whose kids are all in school. But a woman working 40+ hours a week is supposed to do her consignment/thrift shopping when, exactly? I hardly think most dual-income families want to spend their weekends combing over thrift stores.

This is something where the time spent looking for bargains can really add up.

Wait, are you kidding? I wrote that. I'm also part of a dual Fed family with same HHI as OP.
People do this. But keep justifying every expense...

How do you have any time with your kids? Do they go with you? We've outsourced housekeeping at every other week because cleaning the house was killing our weekends. For shopping I do almost all online and on sale. I truly don't think you can work 40 ish hours a week and do these frugal habits like scouring through goodwill without a cost to your family time.

If shopping for clothing takes so much time for you- you need to curb your shopping. Twice a year works for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op again. We are navigating the summer camp thing now. $450 (or even higher... Smithsonian camps are closer to $540/week with aftercare!) seems to be pretty standard unless you do a city camp or Ymca type camp, which are ok but not for the whole summer. They aren't always well organized. We are looking at sending kids to stay with relatives for part of the summer.

I honestly think a big problem is the cost of living here. $450/week per child for camp is so crazy. Housing is so expensive. Even food is more expensive. Daycare most expensive in nation. I would love to move somewhere cheaper. But I am a fed and DH also works on the Hill.

I'm sorry but you can't afford this. The most you can afford is the YMCA daycare. Disorganized or not you can't afford the more expensive if you are trying to pay down credit card debt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op again. We are navigating the summer camp thing now. $450 (or even higher... Smithsonian camps are closer to $540/week with aftercare!) seems to be pretty standard unless you do a city camp or Ymca type camp, which are ok but not for the whole summer. They aren't always well organized. We are looking at sending kids to stay with relatives for part of the summer.

I honestly think a big problem is the cost of living here. $450/week per child for camp is so crazy. Housing is so expensive. Even food is more expensive. Daycare most expensive in nation. I would love to move somewhere cheaper. But I am a fed and DH also works on the Hill.

I'm sorry but you can't afford this. The most you can afford is the YMCA daycare. Disorganized or not you can't afford the more expensive if you are trying to pay down credit card debt.

OP, I still don't understand why you won't consider hiring a nanny/babysitter for the summer. It sounds like the youngest has to go to daycare to keep the spot, and you can definitely get an on-the-books nanny for two older kids for less than $900/week. The advantage is that if you find a nanny with a car (or even leave your car at home), they can do some of the drop-off/pick-ups and allow you and your DH to carpool which would probably save on gas and parking. You may also find a nanny who can do light meal prep, making it a lot easier to do home-cooked meals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op again. We are navigating the summer camp thing now. $450 (or even higher... Smithsonian camps are closer to $540/week with aftercare!) seems to be pretty standard unless you do a city camp or Ymca type camp, which are ok but not for the whole summer. They aren't always well organized. We are looking at sending kids to stay with relatives for part of the summer.

I honestly think a big problem is the cost of living here. $450/week per child for camp is so crazy. Housing is so expensive. Even food is more expensive. Daycare most expensive in nation. I would love to move somewhere cheaper. But I am a fed and DH also works on the Hill.

I'm sorry but you can't afford this. The most you can afford is the YMCA daycare. Disorganized or not you can't afford the more expensive if you are trying to pay down credit card debt.

OP, I still don't understand why you won't consider hiring a nanny/babysitter for the summer. It sounds like the youngest has to go to daycare to keep the spot, and you can definitely get an on-the-books nanny for two older kids for less than $900/week. The advantage is that if you find a nanny with a car (or even leave your car at home), they can do some of the drop-off/pick-ups and allow you and your DH to carpool which would probably save on gas and parking. You may also find a nanny who can do light meal prep, making it a lot easier to do home-cooked meals.

I guess it depends on where you live. We loved the YMCA camps in Bethesda and Silver Spring. Very well organized and the kids loved it. Did before care, too. For the whole summer. Maybe the other YMCA camps aren't as good, but those two were great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. First of all, we are NOT in DC. We are not far from DC but do not have easy access to metro. Second, we have three kids in two different locations. Even with two cars, drop off and pickup from daycare / aftercare is stressful as can be and we often run right up to the 6pm deadline even when we leave at 5pm. Figuring out how to take public transport back and forth from two locations with Jobs just isn't realistic. So selling cars is not an option. It would be great if we could get by on one car. But we cannot.

We do run around a lot to activities in evenings and on weekends. We do not shop at Whole Foods as a PP suggested. Try giant, shoppers, and occasionally trader joes if we need RTH foods for an especially busy work week. We do tend to get carryout and some delivery 1-2x per week. We have a restaurant night one night per week. DH travels a lot for work so when he is away and I am flying solo with the kids doing two drop offs and pickups and working a 9-10 hr day, I do give myself the luxury of not having to cook an extra night.

We do have two elderly dogs in addition to the three kids. Dogs predate kids. So we have dog walking we pay for each month and extra expenses there for food.

Honestly, I am grateful to those who post helpful and positive comments instead of the "oh you shouldn't have had three kids and bought a house." Well thanks a frickin lot for those genius comments. What do we do? Give two kids up for adoption and live in a box down by the river?

We certainly are not going to sell our home, which is already too small, and move our kids into an even smaller apartment in a crappy school district in DC with even higher taxes!

I agree with you about the unhelpful comments about having thee kids (it's not like you can give one away even if you wanted to) but the bolded is a luxury you cannot afford with major credit card debt. You have debt because you live beyond your means. Your means does not stretch to include take out at the moment. Sorry but it doesn't. Cook a bunch of meals on Sunday and then freeze. Eat slowly over the course of the week. No you will not want to do this but this is the kind of thing you can afford to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. First of all, we are NOT in DC. We are not far from DC but do not have easy access to metro. Second, we have three kids in two different locations. Even with two cars, drop off and pickup from daycare / aftercare is stressful as can be and we often run right up to the 6pm deadline even when we leave at 5pm. Figuring out how to take public transport back and forth from two locations with Jobs just isn't realistic. So selling cars is not an option. It would be great if we could get by on one car. But we cannot.

We do run around a lot to activities in evenings and on weekends. We do not shop at Whole Foods as a PP suggested. Try giant, shoppers, and occasionally trader joes if we need RTH foods for an especially busy work week. We do tend to get carryout and some delivery 1-2x per week. We have a restaurant night one night per week. DH travels a lot for work so when he is away and I am flying solo with the kids doing two drop offs and pickups and working a 9-10 hr day, I do give myself the luxury of not having to cook an extra night.

We do have two elderly dogs in addition to the three kids. Dogs predate kids. So we have dog walking we pay for each month and extra expenses there for food.

Honestly, I am grateful to those who post helpful and positive comments instead of the "oh you shouldn't have had three kids and bought a house." Well thanks a frickin lot for those genius comments. What do we do? Give two kids up for adoption and live in a box down by the river?

We certainly are not going to sell our home, which is already too small, and move our kids into an even smaller apartment in a crappy school district in DC with even higher taxes!

I agree with you about the unhelpful comments about having thee kids (it's not like you can give one away even if you wanted to) but the bolded is a luxury you cannot afford with major credit card debt. You have debt because you live beyond your means. Your means does not stretch to include take out at the moment. Sorry but it doesn't. Cook a bunch of meals on Sunday and then freeze. Eat slowly over the course of the week. No you will not want to do this but this is the kind of thing you can afford to do.

+1 Also, loosen up on your definition of what is an acceptable dinner. When DH is out of town and I feel too tired to cook, we may just have sandwiches or scrambled eggs or even cereal for a night. It's fine, really. Blowing money on takeout when you are drowning in debt is not fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. First of all, we are NOT in DC. We are not far from DC but do not have easy access to metro. Second, we have three kids in two different locations. Even with two cars, drop off and pickup from daycare / aftercare is stressful as can be and we often run right up to the 6pm deadline even when we leave at 5pm. Figuring out how to take public transport back and forth from two locations with Jobs just isn't realistic. So selling cars is not an option. It would be great if we could get by on one car. But we cannot.

We do run around a lot to activities in evenings and on weekends. We do not shop at Whole Foods as a PP suggested. Try giant, shoppers, and occasionally trader joes if we need RTH foods for an especially busy work week. We do tend to get carryout and some delivery 1-2x per week. We have a restaurant night one night per week. DH travels a lot for work so when he is away and I am flying solo with the kids doing two drop offs and pickups and working a 9-10 hr day, I do give myself the luxury of not having to cook an extra night.

We do have two elderly dogs in addition to the three kids. Dogs predate kids. So we have dog walking we pay for each month and extra expenses there for food.

Honestly, I am grateful to those who post helpful and positive comments instead of the "oh you shouldn't have had three kids and bought a house." Well thanks a frickin lot for those genius comments. What do we do? Give two kids up for adoption and live in a box down by the river?

We certainly are not going to sell our home, which is already too small, and move our kids into an even smaller apartment in a crappy school district in DC with even higher taxes!

I agree with you about the unhelpful comments about having thee kids (it's not like you can give one away even if you wanted to) but the bolded is a luxury you cannot afford with major credit card debt. You have debt because you live beyond your means. Your means does not stretch to include take out at the moment. Sorry but it doesn't. Cook a bunch of meals on Sunday and then freeze. Eat slowly over the course of the week. No you will not want to do this but this is the kind of thing you can afford to do.

+1 Also, loosen up on your definition of what is an acceptable dinner. When DH is out of town and I feel too tired to cook, we may just have sandwiches or scrambled eggs or even cereal for a night. It's fine, really. Blowing money on takeout when you are drowning in debt is not fine.

You can also do frozen pizza for a fraction of the cost of take out. It's not as good taste-wise, but it's actually probably better for you.

DH and I aren't in your financial situation, but when we first started real jobs out of grad school and were working crazy hours, we realized we were doing take out a lot. The cost and the added fat etc of restaurant food was really adding up. We took some time to check out super easy frozen options (or boxed meal options) at Trader Joe's, and just made sure to always have a stock at the ready. It's 8 years later, and we still do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bet is that OP went out and bought all 3 kids brand new boots, snow pants, jackets, mittens, hats, new sleds, new shovels just their size and blew $250 because it's snowing and the kids wanted to go outside for 15 minutes

Impossible to buy all of the above for 3 kids for $250.

Agreed, and for the record, my two have been outside for hours and hours. I have the dryer running non stop.not od wet into dry and repeat.

I'm certainly not going to hate on patents who want to warmly clothe their children.

You can warmly clothe your child for much less. I got snow pants for $5 and boots for $3 at a consignment sale. I think that was pp's point.

Get those bargains at a consignment sale/thrift store requires:
1) Being there when the store's open (they often close @ 5)
2) Happening to see something in your kids' sizes -- you won't go 3-for-3, but maybe 1-for-3 and 2-for-3. So then there's 2-3 trips to different stores
3) Beating out Everyone Else for the stuff in your desired sizes and that isn't horribly inappropriate for whatever reason (e.g. something from 1985).

Maybe doable for a SAHM with a preschooler or whose kids are all in school. But a woman working 40+ hours a week is supposed to do her consignment/thrift shopping when, exactly? I hardly think most dual-income families want to spend their weekends combing over thrift stores.

This is something where the time spent looking for bargains can really add up.

Wait, are you kidding? I wrote that. I'm also part of a dual Fed family with same HHI as OP.
People do this. But keep justifying every expense...

How do you have any time with your kids? Do they go with you? We've outsourced housekeeping at every other week because cleaning the house was killing our weekends. For shopping I do almost all online and on sale. I truly don't think you can work 40 ish hours a week and do these frugal habits like scouring through goodwill without a cost to your family time.

New poster, but I buy my son's clothes on eBay. I generally browse when I get a break at work, or at night, and either buy it now, or just place my best bet for the auctions and let it go (I don't have time to monitor the end of auctions and try to snipe something in the last ten seconds anymore). I bought a winter coat and snow pants in July for $25 combined. I buy shoes new though. I bought snow boots off amazon for $30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^pp I feel like your advice is good but would be better for someone who is unable to save vs someone who is in massive debt.

It seems like the op is spending too much because of certain choices she's made around her number of children, house, commute and childrens' activities. Until she makes some big changes she's going to have a hard time not ordering convenient food.

Her biggest outflows are related to her home, childcare and two cars. Something has to give because she needs to almost free up an entire salary to go towards the debt. She needs at least 50k a year going to the debt. That's not going to happen by quitting some activities and cooking at home. It's going to happen by moving to an inexpensive apartment, selling a car, changing the childcare situation, etc.

Regardless op needs to do the math. It all comes down to inflow vs outflow. The numbers don't lie. Do the math op. Figure out how you can dedicate 5-6k a month towards the debt and to savings.

This. She wants to live like she is truly UMC (3 kids in all the activities they want, fancy summer camp, expensive home, new cars, convenience food whenever she's tired of cooking, etc.), which is what their income alone with no debt should allow. However, they do have that debt that they need to pay back so they are not truly UMC. They cannot afford to live like they are.

[Anonymous]

"Our house is extremely modest and too small for a family of 5" -- yet it's worth $800K.

I don't understand this. How can something be "extremely modest" and cost $800K? We are a family of 5 living in a 3BR condo in Columbia Heights like this one, on the market for $325k, and we're doing ok.
https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/1429-Girard-St-NW-20009/unit-305/home/96098202

I can't wrap my head around the numbers the OP is saying. Holy moly, you earn more than three times what we do and you burn through SO MUCH every month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My bet is that OP went out and bought all 3 kids brand new boots, snow pants, jackets, mittens, hats, new sleds, new shovels just their size and blew $250 because it's snowing and the kids wanted to go outside for 15 minutes

Impossible to buy all of the above for 3 kids for $250.

Agreed, and for the record, my two have been outside for hours and hours. I have the dryer running non stop.not od wet into dry and repeat.

I'm certainly not going to hate on patents who want to warmly clothe their children.

You can warmly clothe your child for much less. I got snow pants for $5 and boots for $3 at a consignment sale. I think that was pp's point.

Get those bargains at a consignment sale/thrift store requires:
1) Being there when the store's open (they often close @ 5)
2) Happening to see something in your kids' sizes -- you won't go 3-for-3, but maybe 1-for-3 and 2-for-3. So then there's 2-3 trips to different stores
3) Beating out Everyone Else for the stuff in your desired sizes and that isn't horribly inappropriate for whatever reason (e.g. something from 1985).

Maybe doable for a SAHM with a preschooler or whose kids are all in school. But a woman working 40+ hours a week is supposed to do her consignment/thrift shopping when, exactly? I hardly think most dual-income families want to spend their weekends combing over thrift stores.

This is something where the time spent looking for bargains can really add up.

Wait, are you kidding? I wrote that. I'm also part of a dual Fed family with same HHI as OP.
People do this. But keep justifying every expense...

How do you have any time with your kids? Do they go with you? We've outsourced housekeeping at every other week because cleaning the house was killing our weekends. For shopping I do almost all online and on sale. I truly don't think you can work 40 ish hours a week and do these frugal habits like scouring through goodwill without a cost to your family time.

New poster, but I buy my son's clothes on eBay. I generally browse when I get a break at work, or at night, and either buy it now, or just place my best bet for the auctions and let it go (I don't have time to monitor the end of auctions and try to snipe something in the last ten seconds anymore). I bought a winter coat and snow pants in July for $25 combined. I buy shoes new though. I bought snow boots off amazon for $30.

I'm a SAHM and the kids went everywhere with me. Goodwill is fairly well organized and it's not like you're going to have them try clothes on there. Just know their sizes and what brands work for them and grab what you need. And tip for next year: Look at spring/summer yard sales for snowpants/coats/boots and buy a size or two up. You can probably get everything you need for under 20 bucks at yard sale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Our house is extremely modest and too small for a family of 5" -- yet it's worth $800K.

I don't understand this. How can something be "extremely modest" and cost $800K? We are a family of 5 living in a 3BR condo in Columbia Heights like this one, on the market for $325k, and we're doing ok.
https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/1429-Girard-St-NW-20009/unit-305/home/96098202

I can't wrap my head around the numbers the OP is saying. Holy moly, you earn more than three times what we do and you burn through SO MUCH every month.

I agree. This is exactly the kind of place OP should be living in given her childcare costs and debt. it would afford her to pay off her student loans. The extra 1-2n a month she would save in housing could go to the cc debt. She could take transit to work for free since she's a fed and sell her car. She could save a good 750 a month there.

Even better - she could hire a nanny and improve her quality of life by not having to do drop offs and pick ups for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Heating a tin of tomato soup and toast and cheese takes less time than picking up takeaway.