I just wanted to share with the posters who were considering bankruptcy.
Unless you are on the verge of losing your home, I would strongly encourage you to consider another option. Bankruptcy does not just go away after a few years. It's there forever. Even if you rebuild your credit afterwards, it's still there - a haunting demon. A friend and my in-laws also filed bankruptcy in the past.
My in-laws filed over 20 years ago and have recovered financially but it's still there.
My husband is a credit card spender. I would only spend when I had the cash and did not depend on credit. It didn't matter though. Our spending habits combined nearly led to our financial demise a few years back too.
This is what I did and I hope you give it a try and it works for you too.
I started with a complete inventory of all of our bills, separating them into three categories.
Home (mortgage and utilities)
Credit cards - (lowest balance to highest balance regardless of the APR)
Miscellaneous bills (entertainment, clothing, food, gas, fast food, etc.)
Since the Home category is pretty consistent every month, I set up a budget for that first. I went back through our utility bill for the year prior and chose the highest month bill of the year and added that amount to our mortgage amount.
Next, I reviewed our telephone, internet, and television (satellite) bills. On average, I was paying about 230.00 per month for them all combined. Way too much in my opinion. I started shopping around and found a bundle package with Verizon. Now I pay 153.00 per month for unlimited long distance telephone, satellite TV, and DSL service. Saved $77.00 per month, just doing that.
Then I added this amount to the mortgage and utilities. This totalled amount is what I know I absolutely have to pay every month and I better make sure it's in the account.
Next, I did the Miscellaneous. I'm a paper keeper, meaning I keep EVERY receipt and then purge them about every 3-4 months. I started going over what was spent where and learned that we spent a lot more than we really needed to. I set up a weekly grocery budget and a fun budget. If there was anything extra at the end of the week, it was divided evenly between the two and added to the next week. I do this every week until the end of the month. If there is anything left over, that amount is divided in half again and half is divided again and added to the following week's budget (grocery and fun), the other half is locked away in the savings account.
The money for monthly gas was a little trickier when the gas prices skyrocketed. I first had a set limit for gas each week but did have to adjust that. I did manage to adjust it a little bit upwards and still be able to pay the cards down (see below.)
Also, every time I spend cash, no matter if the amount is $5.01 and all I need is a penny, I don't. Instead, I will give them $6.00 and get 0.99 change to put in my giant size espresso cup of change. When the cup gets full, the change is rolled and turned in to the bank as a deposit into the savings account. My cup last gave me $281.00 change to put in the savings account. That was in March. It's full again so will be adding at least that much to the savings account again very soon. Nobody touches the cup! They might lose a finger or even a hand!
That being said, and having two set amounts for each budget, I then subtracted that amount, plus the Household amount from our combined monthly income.
Lastly came the dreaded credit cards. To be honest, I was floored when I learned just how much credit card debt we had. My husband had wracked up over $40,000.00 in credit card debt alone. Since he paid his own credit card bills each month, I had no idea. Even worse than that, he is very inconsistent about paying his bills on time so he had late charges and the interest rates were way the heck up there. It was terrible.
I took each of his cards most current statements and started from the lowest to highest balance. The lowest one was about 1200.00 but the interest rate on it by that time was 22%. This is where I started.
I had him call the company and basically gave him a script to go by (my name wasn't on the cards or I would have done it myself). He requested a decrease in his APR on each and every card. Two of the five card companies agreed on the first call. The 22% card was reduced to 11% so they cut it in half. Not as low as I would like but it was a start. Another card was up to 31% and they reduced that to 20%. The other three didn't budge the first time.
This is where I made two 'necessary' purchases. The first one was MS Money software. I highly recommend it. You can set up your checking, savings accounts, print your checks, balance your checkbook in about 5 minutes, pretty much a no brainer software that really keeps you in line with your bills and spending as long as you remember to faithfully enter any debit card purchase in your check register provided with the software. It will also link to many banks to update your balances online. You can also set it up to remind you for upcoming bills. (Maybe if the husband had used this earlier, we would not have been in this situation?)
The second purchase was about $8.00. An accordion file folder for the monthly statements. Husband always threw his away and I can't even begin to tell you what a dumb idea that is. KEEP them. Organize the tabs for each bill and put your statement in when you pay each bill. I also write the date and the amount when I make a payment somewhere on the statement, then keep them in chronological order.
The actual payments came next. The smallest balance card was paid off first. All of other cards only got the minimum payment PLUS $1 more. I started doing this just for my own peace of mind I guess but I learned later that this actually helped us a bit when negotiating the lower APRs on the three more stubborn cards. It may have only been $1 extra but it was EXTRA payment and, believe it or not, they do look at that.
Excluding the card to be paid off first, I added up the minimum payments of the remaining four cards (plus the extra dollar to each of those) and decided on an amount to pay the lowest balance card to get that balance moving toward 0 as fast as I could.
In this case, I decided on 200.00. This left me with a little over 200.00 extra (I call it mad money but it really goes into savings anyway -planning ahead for birthdays, auto insurance, Christmas, and emergencies.)
I had that card paid off relatively quickly in a few months. When it was paid off, the card was cancelled and that 200.00 was added to the minimum payment (plus $1) on the next lowest balance card. After the first month of this, once again, had the husband call his credit card company and ask for a reduction in his APR. This time it was granted. Should also mention that this card was one of the three that refused the request the first time.
The first six months or so of this was a mildly painful transition. He was used to whipping out a credit card, I was used to having cash on hand for whatever I wanted. It wasn't going to happen anymore.
Finally, I was down to the last remaining card (754.00 per month payment by this time, having applied the payments for each card to the next as they were paid off.)
When I got to this point, I started shopping around for cards with rewards programs and started comparing those cards. The last card I was paying on also had a rewards program but not quite what I wanted. I wanted to know if the terms were negotiable. It was! How about that!
So, instead of losing a valuable customer the card company decided to keep me.
Now I get 3% back on purchases of most things as long as I pay the balance in full every month (which I do). Any kind of air or rail travel purchased with the card is a 6% reward.
I no longer use a debit card. The husband is not allowed to get a credit card again but instead, takes a certain amount of cash every week. Say what you want but he got us into this mess pretty much so he has to live with it now.
It's been a few years now working with this system but it has been very good for us. I find that I average about 400.00 per month AFTER the rewards bonuses kick in so essentially I am able to bank another $354.00 per month in savings. It adds up quicker than you might think.
Should also mention that we have two teens still at home and they can really be expensive. They were made a part of the plan and do their part to help out too. Their contribution is mostly the avoidance of fast food all the time. They can come home and have a meal or eat before they leave. Things like that.
Sorry for the lengthy post but hopefully I can help anyone else get out of a potentially bad financial situation like we faced. |
