Hello. My name is Greg…..and I’m an idiot. Well, money-wise that is. I’ve never been very good with it. It’s always been in one hand and out the other. If I have a couple of extra bucks, I’ll find something that I “just gotta have” and there those extra bucks go. I, at one point, had a big plan of paying down debt and saving money but it lost it’s luster rather quickly when again….I started to have a couple of extra bucks. Well, you know what happened. It feels really weird to open up like this in front of EVERYONE. I have never talked about my finances to anyone other than my wife but I need a drastic change and I feel like this thread and this website will help me stick to the course. I’ll let you in on every juicy detail and share my dark financial secrets with all of you for the ultimate prize…..financial freedom.

So here’s the skinny. I’m two days away from my 36th birthday. I’m married with two children. I have an great job and I make pretty decent money (at least I think so….especially for only having a high school diploma). My wife is a stay-at-home mom and home schools our children. I have struggled with money and finances since I moved away from home at the age of 19. Sure there have been high points but for the most part, a lot of low points. I have never owned a home and I have no savings or emergency fund. On the bright side, my situation is not as bad as most. I’m not buried under $50k in credit card debt and I’m not upside down in a house or anything big like that. I have never filed bankruptcy. I’ve got a promotion at work that’s just around the bend and there’s also a settlement check coming that should be in the $20k-$25k range.

With this money coming, I found myself daydreaming on all of the worthless crap I could buy and then something happened. My wife called me at work and told me that the TV had been shut off that morning. After I got home from work, I sat down with the bills and faced the daunting truth. We are behind on almost everything. The bills are snowballing and it’s choking us to death. We are living paycheck to paycheck and have been barely making it and it looks like it’s getting worse. I finally snapped and decided that I’ve had ENOUGH!! It’s time to take over. It’s time I take control of my finances, start enjoying my life and the freedom of not being in debt. I’m sick to death of having bill collectors calling all of the time. I’m 36!! It’s time to grow up!!

So here are some numbers for you:
Annual Income: $90k.
I have a fully company-funded retirement which I have about $40k in. I also have a fully company-funded life insurance policy.

These are our 30 day bills (the ones that are behind):
Power bill: $1,516 Down to $1,016 as of 1/21/2013
Direct TV: $180 Paid off 1/21/2013
Water/Sewer/Garbage: $665 Paid off 1/7/2013
Alhambra (Drinking Water): $145 Paid off 1/7/2013
Wave (Internet): $200 Paid off 1/7/2013

These are our Credit Cards:
CC1: $385 – 21% (min pymt $25) $345 as of 1/25/2013
CC2: $1850 – 18% (min pymt $75) $1642 as of 2/23/2013

These are our Medical Bills:
MB1: $61 Down to $46 as of 1/21/2013
MB2: $691 Down to $644 as of 1/21/2013
MB3: $222 Down to $202 as of 1/21/2013
MB4: $792 Down to $742 as of 1/21/2013
MB5: $721 Down to $681 as of 1/21/2013
MB6: $77 Paid off 1/7/2013
MB7: $59 Paid off 1/7/2013
Total: $2623 Total as of 1/7/2013---$2315

This is our auto loan:
$27,100 – 9.5%

Savings
$0-----------$625.46 as of 2/23/2013

Credit Score - 533------545 as of 2/6/2013

EDIT**I forgot to mention that I also owe the IRS about $900 in taxes that I'm making payments on.

That, for the most part is it. My goals are to obviously get this paid down and paid off. I’d like to have $3,000 in savings by the end of 2013 (which I have none of currently). I’d like to have everything wiped out and have at least 2/3 of the auto loan wiped out by the end of the year so that I can be well on my way to being debt free. Then, I'd like to focus on saving for a down payment on a house and also start an early retirement fund. I'd also like to get my credit cleaned up as this will be imperative to buying a house. I will track all progress on this thread and I hope you enjoy the journey. I’d appreciate as much help along the way as possible. If there are opinions on what I should focus on or try to eliminate, etc, please let me know. Thank you!

LET’S DO THIS!!!

OK. Can I ask a few questions?

The bills you list as "30 day bills" I'm assuming are the amounts you currently owe, not the amounts you owe every month.

What you really need to do first is take a look at what you are spending currently, and you are going to have to cut some things. At least temporarily fairly deeply.

Based solely on the information given, I would immediately cut off the cable. It's not necessary. I might cut the internet, depending on how integral it is to your life. If you work from home alot or your wife uses online tools for homeschooling, then obviously it's not much of a savings to cut the internet.

I'm not sure about the drinking water thing - is your tap water really bad? If it's just a preference/taste issue, I would cut that too.

That's also a fairly large car loan. If it is at all feasible, you may be significantly better off trading that in for a much cheaper car.

Since you don't own, I would also aggressively look at the rental market near your work, since you don't need to worry about schools etc. Cutting transportation costs saves both money and time. I wouldn't break my lease, but you may be in a much better position when it comes time if you do your research.

In addition, you NEED an e-fund. Believe me, I clawed my way out of debt last year, only to end up right back where I started because I didn't have enough of an e-fund.

With two kids and only one income, I would recommend at least 3k before you start pounding down the debt. Speaking of which....

Is there any kind of side gig your wife could do? Maybe part-time childcare (like after/before school for a neighbor) or start a blog on homeschooling and monetize it? Any additional income helps because it can go straight to getting you out of debt.

Can you get extra hours at work or do some consulting work? Even just a little bit can make a big difference.

To jump start, you can also comb through belongings and ebay/craigslist them and put the funds in your new efund.

Greg, I like your can-do attitude! My suggestions for using the settlement money would be:
(1) Put at least $1,000 into savings for true emergencies only. (Or is this the $3,000 you were referring to? If so, make it $3,000.)
(2) Pay off both credit cards in full. Call both companies and ask them if they could please reduce your interest rate and what is the lowest they can approve. Once you've done that with both, keep the card that gives you the lowest interest rate, and shred/never ever use the one with the higher interest rate.
(3) Pay off all of the medical bills and all of the 30 day bills. First, do any of them contain late fees? If so, call the company and ask if they can waive any portion of the fees if you pay the account in full immediately. Second, consider where you can reduce your costs on the monthly bills. For example, I'm not sure how many months that power bill represents, but that's almost two years worth of my power bills (and I have electric heating and air), though I live in a small place, but still gives a bit of perspective. Same for water/sewer/trash, that's two years of my costs. Your DirecTV and Wave (internet) bills are also very high, but I don't know how many months of services your amounts include either. In both of those cases, you may be able to get better rates just by calling the provider, telling them it's been hard to cover their cost, and asking if there is anything they can do to lower your rate. Unless you have already done this, chances are they can find reductions for you, and if they don't then call again and talk to another rep.
(4) Keep at least one month's worth of expenses in the account from which you pay your bills. (Or is this the $3,000 you were referring to? If so, make it $3,000.) That way, the money is already there when it's time to pay the bills, rather than using your current paycheck to pay the bills. Then, do the same every month from your paychecks. In other words, you will get in the habit of using last month's paycheck to pay this month's bills -- you already know you have the money to cover the bills on time.
(5) There are many options for what to do with the rest. I think the best bet might be to use the remainder to pay down the car loan. And/or you could boost your emergency fund or savings/checking account higher. Have you given any thought to whether you'd be willing to trade your car in for one that is lower cost? Or, a few months after you've paid off all your bills, you could call your credit union and a few different banks to get quotes on what interest rates they could give you to refinance your auto loan. I'd bet that after you've made good on all your bills, etc. and that's had a few months to settle in, your credit score will start to go up, and you could qualify for better auto loan rates, as your current one is very very high.

I hope I didn't talk your ear off! Good luck!

Finally, here are my top eight money saving tips I actually use with my family with two kids.

1) The public library. It's our date night (25 cent coffee + couches + the kids play upstairs for free), our video store (no fees), bookstore, ebook store (ours even rents the ereader for $1/week), and video game store (no fees).

2) Organize the hand me downs to prevent repeat buying. I use rubbermaid bins with an itemized list including sizes for clothes. I keep one empty one in their room for items my oldest son grows out of either physically or mentally. For my younger one, when he is done, we box it up to .....

3) Aggressively utilize the thrift store - bring in used items and trade for items for the next kid if they are wildly different sizes / interests, or simply get cash for stuff no longer needed at all.

4) Simple cooking. Crockpot + beans, veggies, rice and spices = delicious and cheap. Plus your family eats healthier which can help to keep down doctor bills.

5) Chores. It helps to keep from paying people to do stuff because your tired when your kids can actually help because they know how to do things.

6) Organize activities to cut down on driving. CARPOOL!!! Use internet shopping for stores where you only get one or two items if possible. For items used in bulk, check out and see if amazon et al. has it cheaper.

7) Teach your kids to save. Kids will keep you honest about savings when they have been taught. Plus it keeps down the gimmee's.

Spend money on what really matters. I live in a tiny house so I could afford to live in walking distance of most of our family. That's super important to me, far more than having a seperate dining room or nice furniture or a fancy car. When you spend on what matters, you are happier and more content and you want less things.

from one financial idiot to another... welcome to the site. There is a good group of folks here that will help you stay on track. Just don't do the stupid stuff that I did and you'll be fine.

Ms. Kitty touched on a lot of it. I learned the hard way that an eFund is major important to have. It will definitely help keep you from adding to your debt.

If I read it correctly, did you say you're coming into around 25k. If so... my first suggestion would be to use 3k to build the eFund you want. I'd then get the bills caught up you're behind on. Now I know some will disagree with me on this, but then I'd tackle the medical bills and if you have any left over I'd pay off debt.

I think the key to this section is not only to post your progress, but post you mis-deeds as well. I know a certian someone has put a virtual foot against my butt when it was warrented.

Best of luck on your journey.

Wow! Some great responses so far. So I'll start with some answers to some questions.


That's correct. I will be posting my budget so you can see what they would be in a normal month when I'm not behind. But yes, the amounts I listed in the first post are the total amounts I owe.


Yes, the internet is very important due to my wife homeschooling. The drinking water is not the greatest where I live. But, the water is more my wife's thing. Her and the kids really use the heck out of the service and we're under a contract (which we have about a year left of)



I agree and I wish I would've found this website about two months ago. The car is something we JUST recently bought. I vow to pay this amount down quickly!!



The house we rent is pretty simple. We are paying $1300/month which I don't feel is bad at all for our area. With my promotion through my work, we will most likely be moving out of this area anyway so we're just waiting until that happens. As far as transportation costs, I live less than 3 miles from my work.

$3k is exactly what I was thinking. I have already made arrangements through my payroll dept to have $125 of each of my checks directly deposited into my savings account. At that rate, I will have $3k in an e-fund by the end of this year.


We've just started talking about this. We will figure something out.


The problem with this is that I'm in management and I'm on salary. I work approx 72 hours a week as it is. I've thought about picking something else up but I'm so limited on my availability. I work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day.


Now this I've already started to do. I just sold (about 30 minutes ago in fact) a classic bicycle of mine and was able to get $530 out of it. I will be applying that to the water bill because our landlord is concerned about the amount owed and wants us to get that cleaned up. He's a super nice guy and he has been great to us. I want to make sure and take care of that first and foremost. I am also looking for other stuff laying around to generate some of that green stuff.

A lot of good stuff here too. I like your ideas for how to spend the money and I was thinking the same thing.

Some good tips. Thank you!

Thank you!!

So here's my monthly budget and what it looks like just paying month to month expenses. I know some of these will look really high but I live in California. Please ask if you have any questions or say something if you have any tips/pointers. Thank you.
I get two checks a month. One on the 10th and the other on the 25th. Here's how they will break down. Also, one more thing, my pay was just recently restructured and will be effective Jan 1, which means the check I get on Jan 25th will be the first check reflecting this change. I was assured that I would be compensated the same amount of money but I would just be getting two checks instead of three. So until then, I'm more or less kinda guessing what they will be. I budgeted conservatively for a worst-case scenario. Anyways......here's what they would look like:

10th--Approx $2300
Car Payment $505
Car Insurance $74
Direct TV $90
Water/Sewer/Garb $88
Alhambra $30
Internet $68
Phone $80
Power/Gas $250
CC1 $25
Medical $100 (which is only giving about $15 each)
IRS $75
Savings (E-fund) $150
Groceries $300
Fuel $70
Debt/Bills $150
TOTAL $2056

25th--Approx $2300
Rent $1300
CC2 $75
IRS $75
Savings (E-fund) $150
Groceries $300
Fuel $70
Debt/Bills $150
TOTAL $2020

Hi!
Your groceries seem pretty high. 300 every two weeks seems like a lot. I think Kitty mentioned it, but you should be able to reduce that with crock pot meals. They make a lot of food, and you might even have leftovers, which would allow you to eat less food with fewer ingredients.

If you only live 3 miles from work, is there anyway someone can pick you up and/or drop you off, so you save gas, or have your wife take you and pick you up since you're so close. That would save on gas. Does she do a lot of traveling during the week with the kids?
She should cut that down if that's the case. I know gas is expensive in Cali, but with your close proximity to work, you should be able to work something out with someone. Even if it's only a couple days a week, it will save you $. Do not be ashamed and just ASK. For real.

Finally, I have read about medical bills not charging interest or whatever, so if I were you, I would knock those bills out one by one instead of paying $15 to each. if you're going to put $100 down a paycheck, pay off the first one (59), and put the $41 towards the next one (61). Then the next pay period, put the 20 (or whatever you sell on craigslist) towards the $61, and continue in that fashion. Your mail will decrease, and you'll feel good about getting them paid.

Like N2Deep told you, we'll help you and we look forward to your successes and help you with your failures! You can totally do this!

Hi, and welcome to the forums!

One suggestion I have regarding your monthly expenses...your car insurance seems a little high.* When was the last time you shopped around to compare other companies' rates? You can do most of that online, so it won't take much time and could save you a good chunk of money. I just recently got my long-term insurance company to drop its rate because a competitor offered me a lower rate for the same coverage. Also, see if there are any discounts your insurance provider offers that you can take advantage of but aren't. For instance, I recently had to take an online safe driver course for work, and my insurance company gave me a discount for that.

*Unless, of course, your children are of driving age...

That's another good point. I'll look into that.