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

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I'm going to try responding again. I've posted twice before in this thread with realistic, non-judgmental suggestions, and you haven't acknowledged them (or similar suggestions from others) at all, you've responded only to people you can argue with. If that's the way the thread continues, I'm not wasting my time on this anymore.

Given everything you've posted, I think it might help you to start by taking a longer view of your debt. Just like it seems that a lot of your debt was built up through instant gratification (e.g., I need to pick up more expensive RTH food from TJs because my husband is traveling instead of anticipating the travel and making some freezer meals on the weekend for less money), your approach to debt elimination seems to be seeking instant gratification as well (i.e., who can I hire who will just make this go away). It's not going to work that way, though, so that's a notion you should toss aside right now.

If I've read your posts correctly, you have one child in elementary, one who will be in elementary school next fall, and one who will in elementary school in 2.5 years. As each child enters elementary school, your child care costs should drop significantly, because after care is so much less expensive than daycare, and the cost of summer camp shouldn't completely offset that savings. So accept that until September, while you can make some headway on your debt, it won't be huge. Once your middle child is in kindergarten and your child care costs go down, you can put all of that savings each month toward your debt. Once the youngest is in elementary school, you take that further savings and put it toward cc debt (if you still have it at that point, hopefully you won't) or other financial goals.

In the meantime, you can still find smaller ways to find extra cash to put toward debt, so don't just sit around and wait until September to start tackling this. I'm guessing you're home with the snow today, so get started working on a budget in your preferred system. I like mint, but something else might suit you better. I know you had some security concerns about mint, but I did a lot of research before signing up a few years ago, and security was very well addressed (including the fact that you can't make any changes to your bank or credit card accounts from Mint; the information only goes one direction, from the financial institution to Mint, nothing can go the other way). Mint got great reviews from all the major tech sites for its security. Use that (or whatever you choose) to start categorizing your spending from the past six months.

Once you have your spending categorized, go category by category and really scrutinize it to see if there's any way to cut down the expense -- can you get yourself into a cheaper cell phone plan? Saving on internet costs if you go with slightly slower speed? Do you make a lot of trips to grocery stores that involve impulse purchases, so maybe using Peapod or Harris Teeter express lane might actually save you money (and time) because what you'll save in impulse shopping more than offsets the service fee? Can you try to get into a routine of making freezer meals so you don't do take-out as often? I used to be really bad about take out and prepared foods until I got into a habit of 1-2x a week making a meal that's freezable, and then making a double or triple batch so I could put 1-2 meals into the freezer. Do this regularly with different meals and you can actually get a lot of variety going. Can you limit each child to one activity to save costs? Can you find a local independent place to take you car for maintenance instead of going to the dealership (which is a lot more expensive)?

Then set a firm budget for yourself in a way that's easy to maintain through the month. This is another reason I love Mint -- you can create a budget, and then since your spending is automatically entered and categorized, it's easy to check the app on your phone to see how much you've spend in each category. It's saved me plenty of times when I'm tempted to order pizza for dinner, check the app and see I only have $15 left in the take-out budget and it's only mid-month, so I should skip it and cook that chicken in the refrigerator. Once the budget is set, you'll be left with a fixed amount you can put toward your credit card debt every month. Making that payment should be a top priority. If you have unexpected expenses one month, try to cut back in other categories (e.g., eat some cheaper vegetarian meals instead of expensive meat; cut back by $5 on what you spend on birthday party gifts, etc.). If it's more than you can cover that way, pay for it out of savings and then cut back like this for a few months until you've built your savings back up.

On the summer camp thing, can you tell us what region of the are you're in? We might be able to suggest some substantially cheaper options that people have had good experiences with.[/quote]

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