HELP US GET ON OUR FEET!

amother

White

Fri, Jan 06 2017, 10:54 am

Been married for 10 years and been in debt for 8! I can't take it anymore! The first 2 years of marriage my husband opened lots of credit cards and maxed it all out for nonesense and I kept begging him to stop, he invested in a lot of things that ended up nowhere, were ALWAYS behind on regular bills, we almost always have late payment fees on everything, we were already kicked out of 3 apartments because of not paying rent on time, my husband has no clue how to budget we already tried several different methods including Dave Ramsey but NOTHING helped, all bills are neglected and even if I try to be on top of it and remind him when bills are due he tellls me Ye Ye I will pay on time but the due date comes and goes like always. My husband works very hard and so do I but we can never catch up, our bank account is always empty Sad

We currently have lots of outstanding bills, lots of credit card bills, we have a stack of bills from collection agencies, I just found bills from unpaid tolls, unpaid water and utility bills, we owe $ to people who we borrowed from and the list goes on.. we have 3 young kids I wanna be able to marry them off someday without struggling I want to start putting away $ for that NOW but it's impossible, we want to buy a house but that is so far fetched! How do we get out of this?! And if you have ever been in a situation like this please tell me there's a light at the end of the tunnel..

P.S. No need to suggest cutting our monthly expenses because we shop minimum that we need. Most of our monthly payments is for old cc accounts and bills that collected from over the years.

gp2.0

Fri, Jan 06 2017, 11:04 am

Ok. First things first. Before addressing the issue of all the money you owe:

1) Are you and your DH earning enough income to fully cover all your current expenses - housing, food, utilities, insurance, transportation, tuition, etc.?

2) Are all the current bills being paid on time? Do one or both of you have a procrastinating personality that is contributing to bills not being paid?

3) Do both of you have full and equal access to all your earnings and bank accounts?

4) which one of you is in charge of finances and making sure bills get paid?

As for all your debts, you should look into debt consolidation options. You may be able to negotiate a lower balance or no interest. You can hire someone to do this or do it yourself. For example if you owe $1400 to a credit card you can call up and offer to pay a lump sum of $1000 if they'll erase the entire debt and send you a letter confirming that the debt is fully paid/forgiven.

Can you explain why Dave Ramsey's snowball method didn't work for you?

LittleDucky

Fri, Jan 06 2017, 11:13 am

Don't worry about buying a house. That's putting the cart before the horse.
YOU need to take responsibility for this situation. You can't change others, just yourself. You recognize that there is an issue- good job but that is the first step. Where is the broken link that results in bills not being paid etc? Sounds like it's DH. So you need to take this role over.
- make a master list of every bill in the house.
- start paying minimums on everything and use any extra to pay off a small bill like the Ramsey method. Or find the one with the highest interest rate.
- don't take on any more debt
- find a way to increase your income. Tutor? Odd jobs?

amother

Ruby

Fri, Jan 06 2017, 2:55 pm

You need to be the one responsible for paying the bills. In exchange, see if dh will agree to rip up the credit cards. Use only cash. Draw up a budget to see where your money goes each month and if you are actually making enough to cover all expenses. If not, you or dh needs to get a side job. When all is in order, but away a little each month in a savings account.