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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]You people are harsh.[/b]

OP, I work for an agency where lots of people work abroad.  With all of the allowances they receive, they seriously bank the dollars when they're overseas.

This is a problem solved by hacking away over time.[/quote]

They have a housing allowance and they got themselves 50k in credit card debt.  That takes a lot of effort.  [/quote]

I agree, people are being harsh!

My husband and I started out on tough financial footing, and clearly it's gotten worse. We charged our wedding (first mistake, shouldn't have had a wedding) - this cost 7000 all told. For our first year of marriage my husband paid his mortgage on top of our rent, because his ex didn't want to rent out the house. I was in school full-time and worked part-time, then we had our first child. Then I was in school full-time and SAH. Childcare where we lived averaged ~2000 a month and without a degree I was unable to find work that would justify that cost, especially while studying full time. I thought getting my degree was the smart decision.

We saw Europe as an opportunity to pay down debt, given where we were living before and with the benefits we get here. It's been slow going.

I'm sure it's easy to judge, but I posted looking for encouragement. We live extremely frugally - we don't eat out, we don't spend on anything other than necessities - and I just want some reassurance that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm not making excuses, just saying we have a lot of debt that we're working to pay off.[/quote]

Why did it matter what your husband's ex wanted to do with the property? The property should have been addressed in the divorce settlement, which would have had to be finalized before you got married.[/quote]

Because OP and her DH were dating before he was divorced, it fits the pattern here of rash choices, I would suspect.

OP, is your DH much older than you or did you just go to college late?  I'm not sure why you bothered with a college degree since it will be years before you could put it to use, but that's water under the bridge.  Make sure that *both* of you are on the same page for saving money and paying off debt; DH maybe somewhat recklessly trying to impress his young pretty new wife and not making the hard choices.

That rental sounds like a pit.  You are likely paying 20% or more or credit card interest; no rental income is going to make up for that. Sell the condo, clear the $20k equity you have hopefully, and pay off as much high interest debt as possible.

Finally, Dave Ramsey is great. But really it comes down to: your fixed expenses are *tiny*.  When money comes in, immediately pay off a huge % to debt, then live off the rest.  If you run out of money it isn't like you won't make rent![/quote]

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