Oops-45k in debt | Imamother

amother

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 7:24 pm

My husband has been struggling to find a proper job for a while. We keep having things break in our house plus other huge unforeseen expenses plus two failed small business ventures and now oops we're heavily in debt.
20k is credit cards. I have no where left to transfer that. Even if he does find a good job tomorrow, we'd need huge numbers to just break even.
We are eligible for nothing. No discounts, programs, tzeddaka.
We've always been so generous with our money but we realize we need to stop hosting, paying maaser etc.
Before COVID my husband had a decent job and we got ourselves used to a middle class standard of living. Trying to get back down to our old spending habits is taking a huge toll on our shalom bayis in a way that our marriage has never experienced.
I keep saying Hashem will help but it's getting hard to see how he can do that without open miracles.
We're starting treatment this month for secondary infertility which is not covered at all by our awful insurance but it's been years and I'm getting older so we really can't push it off.
I struggle with depression, anxiety and ocd specifically in the area of finances. Part of healing my OCD was to stop obsessing over finances which is a huge part of the reason we got into this situation. I'm worried that being careful with money will undo all my progress from the last few years.
We're really not huge spenders-small house, cheap clothing etc. It's hard to find areas to cut back without compromising our values ie hachnosas orchim, tzeddaka, full tuition etc
This is very hard. Thank you for reading.

amother

Oleander

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 7:28 pm

I don’t understand how you are paying full tuition while you are in such debt. That is crazy. Is your husband expecting to make a ton of money once he gets a job?

I mean I’m not going to go into the hosting and tzeeddaka part cuz I have very different feelings about that than you but the full tuition… do you have an option to ask for some kind of tuition break????

amother

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 7:37 pm

amother Oleander wrote:

Lakewood girls school tuition is very cheap. It hasn't occurred to me to ask for a discount until now. We earn very low six figures (assuming my husband is employed) and we pay under 15k in tuition yearly. It's what it costs to educate my kids. I see asking for a discount as the same thing as taking tzeddaka.

Regarding hosting and tzeddaka, we plan on pausing maaser (while still writing down the number so that maybe one day we can catch up) and drastically cutting back on hosting. Not sure in what direction your opinion differs but I'm open to hearing all ideas because I truly have no idea what I'm doing here.

Due to my OCD we've always been super responsible with finances. Being in a good place with my mental health has caused all this. I don't trust myself anymore to know what I'm doing and my husband works very hard but he's not good with numbers.

amother

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 7:38 pm

amother Daisy wrote:

Oy! Wishing you much health and wealth and happiness. May your emotional and mental health be ok and may you have healthy children. May you have shalom bayis and know peace and happiness in your home.

Amen! I am blessed with all of that besides the first two. Iyh I'll be back here soon posting about my yeshua.

amother

Oleander

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 7:44 pm

amother OP wrote:

Oh ok. Firstly about the hosting and such I thought you were saying you were committed to continuing that no matter what. That it was that important to you.

Yeah that tuition is low. We are in a 5 digit income with tuition at over $20,000 for two kids (and that’s with a tuition break…). So I was thinking you probably were paying much more.

This is hard. Good luck. I hope things pick up and your income goes back to matching up with your life and you are able to catch up with your debt. I’m sure it must be super hard.

amother

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 7:48 pm

amother Oleander wrote:

I'm definitely open to cutting back on everything right now even my super minimal cleaning help. I work full time and deal with several health issues but this is just not sustainable. I'm hoping I can just be even cheaper and make more things from scratch instead of turning down guests but I'm definitely going to do less inviting. Thank you for your responses and good wishes. It really helps.

amother

Amethyst

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 7:52 pm

amother Oleander wrote:

We pay full tuition for 3 kids in Lakewood schools - yes it’s cheap. Around 25-27K a year without dinner and building funds. We are in debt around 25K. It used to be 40K. We paid off around 15K with COVID money and tax refunds. (Lots of unexpected therapy costs before we were able to increase our salaries )

I don’t think the schools would care that we are in debt, honestly.

amother

Brown

Thu, Jun 22 2023, 9:50 pm

amother OP wrote:

Please try reaching out to RSK

Www.rsk.org

amother

Fri, Jun 23 2023, 4:37 pm

amother OP wrote:

Amen! I am blessed with all of that besides the first two. Iyh I'll be back here soon posting about my yeshua.

This is not a long term yeshua but Hashem saw that I needed some chizuk. My husband got a few back to back one time jobs and made $1600 in the last day. That's more than he made in the last two weeks put together.

amother

DarkOrange

Tue, Jun 27 2023, 1:25 am

Re the tuition/maaser piece, OP = we asked a shaila once and were told that based on our financial situation, it was ok to use maaser money towards our kids' tuitions. If you get permission to do this, it means you can keep paying masser, and your kids' schools still get paid.

Re debt in general = if the interest rates are making this much worse than it has to be, but you can still manage minimal payments, I believe there are Jewish organizations that will loan you the money at a low interest rate so that you can pay off the high interest credit cards.

Sorry you are having trouble OP - hope things get better soon Hug

amother

Jasmine

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 5:26 pm

amother DarkOrange wrote:

Which organizations? I am knee deep due to messed up credit score.
Thanx so much.

amother

Aubergine

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 5:40 pm

If you are able to stop using the credit cards, you should try to negotiate with then a payment plan wherein you make monthly payments but they stop compounding the interest. I recently suggested to someone I know to look into this and they were able to work out a 3 year plan to pay off more debt than you have. Hatzlocha.

amother

Linen

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 5:42 pm

amother Aubergine wrote:

Where can I find info about this?

amother

Springgreen

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 5:44 pm

How long ago did u buy your home?

If you have enough equity, taking a helloc would be a good idea instead of credit card debt. even the current high interest rates of 6-7% are a fraction of the 18%+.

Besides for the 20k - where is the rest of the debt?

Dh needs to get a job before you make a pay the debt off plan, but in general you do pay off interest first.

Cutting down on hosting, tzedaka and tuiton until dh gets a job is very reasonable.

amother

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 5:57 pm

amother Springgreen wrote:

I started this thread a while ago and someone just bumped it up.

In the last few months my husband's business ventures have been doing quite well but still very unpredictable. We transferred all our credit card debt (28k by now) at 4% and we have another year until they start charging interest.

Our other debt is to family, medical and the IRS. Family will wait as long as needed bh and the IRS is on a doable payment plan. Medical we've been ignoring successfully for now.

We bh have managed to really cut back on our lifestyle and increase our income. We still pay full tuition because we can't apply for a break in middle of the year. We mostly paused our maaser but we still keep track and fully intend to catch up as soon as we can.

Bh things are looking up. It's still quite overwhelming. We have huge home repairs that can't wait but have to. I'm davening that Hashem keeps the money flowing for long enough for us to catch up. Iyh it'll be good. For everyone.