Debt - how did you fall into debt?

amother

Dustypink

Mon, Sep 11 2023, 10:05 am

Inflation is getting very out of hand.

Credit card debt in the U.S. recently passed 1 trillion.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news......html

Credit card delinquencies are surging.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news......html

Auto loan defaults are surging.

https://www.automoblog.net/neg.....oans/

On top of this, anyone with a home equity line with an adjustable rate has seen their rate climb to around 8% recently. Not sustainable for many people. Truly sad to see.

In summary, people don't have enough money to live these days.

amother

Antiquewhite

Mon, Sep 11 2023, 10:47 am

amother Dustypink wrote:

Can I add to this that as a health care worker who is not a RN (think hospital based PT/OT/SLP/RD/MSW), the raises are abysmal. Reimbursement has been cut by Medicare, PPE expenses have increased, nursing salaries are high, but they have no $ for us. I worked through the pandemic. In 2020 and 2021 I got no raise, 2022 was a 5 star glowing report and 2.5%, the max. 2023 we don’t get until end of year.

Did your food go up 2.5%?

amother

Midnight

Mon, Sep 11 2023, 10:56 am

amother Antiquewhite wrote:

We are in different fields but both my salary and my husband's salary didn't increase by a penny due to inflation. Yet every single business claims higher price due to inflation. So we have to pay more but don't get paid more. It's really upsetting

amother

Dustypink

Mon, Sep 11 2023, 10:57 am

amother Antiquewhite wrote:

Food prices are off the charts. Also, families are depleting their saving to survive.

https://fortune.com/2023/08/16.....tudy/

This can only go on for so long until we see a terrible financial crisis in the US. The data directly points to the fact that families can no longer afford their expenses. They are relying on their depleting savings and defaulting on their debt. This can't last.

amother

Royalblue

Mon, Sep 11 2023, 12:14 pm

We found ourselves in this situation when dh lost his job, literally the week our son was diagnosed with some special needs. The most frustrating part of it was the judgement we received from others rather than the situations we were in.
I have some resentments still, even though it’s been years.

amother

Latte

Tue, Sep 12 2023, 3:39 pm

Tuition. Grocery prices/household expenses increasing faster than our salaries (which in the non-frum world would be perfectly respectable salaries). No ability to save for an emergency fund so unexpected expenses (appliance repairs, car repairs, etc) and unavoidable expenses (making a bris BH) hurt. Interest rate on our home equity loc (which we had been diligently chipping away at) skyrocketing.

amother

Chartreuse

Wed, Sep 20 2023, 8:51 pm

amother Azure wrote:

What do u mean it’s easy to understand. Lucky you that you can’t understand this. We put tuition, gas, food, diapers, toilet paper etc Dentist, copays, deductibles on the credit card and couldn’t pay it off every month and now with the interest we are 20,000 in credit card debts. We pay a few hundred a month and will take years to pay it off

We also had this problem before getting higher paying jobs and taking on contract work on the side. We easily and successfully paid the credit card off by taking out a low interest loan with Upstart. They're very easy to get. It allowed us to pay the debt off, and to stay out of it, we had to shift our mentality about credit and cash. Now I'm a fanatic about credit card usage. I refuse to just put things on them.. I've switched to a cash only policy. I use them on things like groceries or gas then immediately pay it so they remain used but don't carry balances. I realize that is only possible for us because we steadily earned more and more in our careers. But Upstart was a key part of us straightening out our finances.