Debt, am I going about this the right way?

[atarvuzdar]

OP, you're not yet 30, you make a respectable income, you've been smart enough to put money into a 401k (contributing enough to take full advantage of any company match that may be offered, I'm sure!), you minimize monthly spending nicely, you have your revolving debt on VERY low APR cards, you pay as much as you can each month to pay them down and you've taken the time to mark out a two year plan. Stop worrying--you've GOT this!

[Anonymous]

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@atarvuzdar wrote:

OP, you're not yet 30, you make a respectable income, you've been smart enough to put money into a 401k (contributing enough to take full advantage of any company match that may be offered, I'm sure!), you minimize monthly spending nicely, you have your revolving debt on VERY low APR cards, you pay as much as you can each month to pay them down and you've taken the time to mark out a two year plan. Stop worrying--you've GOT this!

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Agreed!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello everyone,

I have about 18 grand in my 401k, so if I do get fired (God forbid) I got some type of cushion.

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Just a piece of advice, your 401K is NOT A CUSION for ANYTHING. You cannot make up lost time, do not ever pull that money out unless your life depends on it. It may seem like a good idea at the time but it is your cusion for retirement and nothing else. If you take it out you do not get a do over when you retire. do not ever look at it as a cusion, it is a recipie for disaster in the future.

Just my unsolicited 2cents worth

[Anonymous]

also.....the 401 is what you want
super positive financial decision...
add to it...

[Anonymous]

In my opinion you should

-pay down your credit cards as fast as possible

-use anything you have other than the 401k to pay down the debt

-stop paying attention to nice 'low interest' things, those are getting you hooked on debt which is their raison d'etre

-stop paying attention to your credit score at this time

-stop using credit cards until you're out of the woods

First on the list: I am doing my best, 600-700 a month, which is ALL I can do. I can do close to 800, but that would be pushing it.  Plus I will use 2,000 during tax time as well, and save about 700 or so that's left over. I am not going to use my 401k, I just have that as a last resort if I get fired or something. I am trying my best to avoid low interest offers, it's just 0 percent or 5 percent is better than 12-14 percent. My credit score is not my main focus, it's around 730 or so, I just see it all the time cause Discover and Citi show it on my statements every month, so it's just there for reference. As far as using my CC's. I hardly do...NOW. I usually just use my debit card, OR if I do use the CC I immediatley pay off that charge (sometimes I do not bring my debt card with me, I will leave it at home, because I get worried about losing it or something, especially if we go to the mall or just walk around at the beach. So I try to carry as little as possible). Either way. I am trying my best. I just feel stressed out. I know there's other people out there who are either doing better or worse. Like I said, some of the guys I work with have 15,000 in debt, a house, and their wives have student loans, and they do too. I don't see how they manage. Heck, I just spoke to one of my friends who works in our network control area and he is paying close to 600 a month on his truck....600 ON A TRUCK PAYMENT!????

Thanks for the words of hope and advice. Like I said, I will not use my 401k, it's just there. I have worked here for 8 years and I have a 401k and a pension, which I heard having both is unheard of now days. Also if I die before I retired my wife gets a good sum of money haha. Seriously, I am worth more dead than I am alive . 

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

In my opinion you should

-pay down your credit cards as fast as possible

-use anything you have other than the 401k to pay down the debt

-stop paying attention to nice 'low interest' things, those are getting you hooked on debt which is their raison d'etre

-stop paying attention to your credit score at this time

-stop using credit cards until you're out of the woods

First on the list: I am doing my best, 600-700 a month, which is ALL I can do. I can do close to 800, but that would be pushing it.  Plus I will use 2,000 during tax time as well, and save about 700 or so that's left over. I am not going to use my 401k, I just have that as a last resort if I get fired or something. I am trying my best to avoid low interest offers, it's just 0 percent or 5 percent is better than 12-14 percent. My credit score is not my main focus, it's around 730 or so, I just see it all the time cause Discover and Citi show it on my statements every month, so it's just there for reference. As far as using my CC's. I hardly do...NOW. I usually just use my debit card, OR if I do use the CC I immediatley pay off that charge (sometimes I do not bring my debt card with me, I will leave it at home, because I get worried about losing it or something, especially if we go to the mall or just walk around at the beach. So I try to carry as little as possible). Either way. I am trying my best. I just feel stressed out. I know there's other people out there who are either doing better or worse. Like I said, some of the guys I work with have 15,000 in debt, a house, and their wives have student loans, and they do too. I don't see how they manage. Heck, I just spoke to one of my friends who works in our network control area and he is paying close to 600 a month on his truck....600 ON A TRUCK PAYMENT!????

Thanks for the words of hope and advice. Like I said, I will not use my 401k, it's just there. I have worked here for 8 years and I have a 401k and a pension, which I heard having both is unheard of now days. Also if I die before I retired my wife gets a good sum of money haha. Seriously, I am worth more dead than I am alive . 

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Glad to hear you're working on doing that.

Hope you can put the stressful part behind you.

Banks are masters of getting us hooked on debt, but they can get very mean

very fast.

[Imperfectfuture]

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@Anonymous wrote:

In my opinion you should

-pay down your credit cards as fast as possible

-use anything you have other than the 401k to pay down the debt

-stop paying attention to nice 'low interest' things, those are getting you hooked on debt which is their raison d'etre

-stop paying attention to your credit score at this time

-stop using credit cards until you're out of the woods

First on the list: I am doing my best, 600-700 a month, which is ALL I can do. I can do close to 800, but that would be pushing it.  Plus I will use 2,000 during tax time as well, and save about 700 or so that's left over. I am not going to use my 401k, I just have that as a last resort if I get fired or something. I am trying my best to avoid low interest offers, it's just 0 percent or 5 percent is better than 12-14 percent. My credit score is not my main focus, it's around 730 or so, I just see it all the time cause Discover and Citi show it on my statements every month, so it's just there for reference. As far as using my CC's. I hardly do...NOW. I usually just use my debit card, OR if I do use the CC I immediatley pay off that charge (sometimes I do not bring my debt card with me, I will leave it at home, because I get worried about losing it or something, especially if we go to the mall or just walk around at the beach. So I try to carry as little as possible). Either way. I am trying my best. I just feel stressed out. I know there's other people out there who are either doing better or worse. Like I said, some of the guys I work with have 15,000 in debt, a house, and their wives have student loans, and they do too. I don't see how they manage. Heck, I just spoke to one of my friends who works in our network control area and he is paying close to 600 a month on his truck....600 ON A TRUCK PAYMENT!????

Thanks for the words of hope and advice. Like I said, I will not use my 401k, it's just there. I have worked here for 8 years and I have a 401k and a pension, which I heard having both is unheard of now days. Also if I die before I retired my wife gets a good sum of money haha. Seriously, I am worth more dead than I am alive . 

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No one is worth more dead than alive.  Yes, we like rebuilding our credit, getting nice reward cards (paid or travel free for spend).  BUT, we are not bank account digits.  If you really feel that way, perhaps some friendly counseling can rework self worth.  And, we should not compare ourselves to others (easy to say, hard to do, especially when you have a type of Parkinsonism disorder).  We value you as a person, who works hard.  We could care less how much you make.

That being said, really try to increase income.  Wife needs dedication here.  The reason for the savings, you stated you charged 4K for cat treatment.  I had to let my 17 year old baby go to renal failure.  I have not built my savings up.  I later used much less money to adopt a cat in need, and he is such a baby. .  The savings is for the next emergency, so you can keep paying down, without adding onto the cards.  They work hand in hand.  And, as my cat example exemplifies, standards and life expenses need to be reasonable.  Your family is more important than kitty (and I say that with kitties being my family).  So, get that extra income, wife can do 16 hours a week, easy.  Even if minimum wage from home, (or you watch kids on your weekends), that is about 1k per month. 

Please think about it, because you did ask for our help.

[Anonymous]

Yeah...the vet bill sucked. I love my cat haha. He was only 2 years old and had a severe blockage in his urinary tract, he had 2 trips to the vet, then a stay at the emergency vet, then had to get surgery. Plus, I charged some other crap, like my trash pick up (it's automatic every year, 330 bucks, that was for 2 years) and then the furniture was around 870 or so, but we did NEED it. I can't have my family sitting on lawn chairs haha. Plus our bathroom light fixtures needed replaced, they were rusted out and looked terrible. I know we could have lived with them, but still, it wasn't pretty haha.

So far, we are doing okay, my wife doesn't make a huge amount of money, but she does do surveys and gets paid for those, and she gets money back from our walmart receipts and we can get that as a check, so it does help, especially when we need to go grocery shopping again.

I do work hard, I have just always been under the impression that you ARE your bank account, you ARE your credit score. I have been raised to believe that. My wife always tells me even if we pay our CC's off, we still got the mortgage, which is around 140,000. But for some reason, the mortgage doesn't cause me stress like the credit cards do. why is that?  She tries to help, she sells stuff on ebay, surveys, collects money from our walmart receipts through her cellphone app. She even cuts corners on christmas haha, making gifts for people instead of buying xbox's or video games and all that stuff kids want now days (nieces and nephews). Either way, we manage, I just think way too much. I get stressed, anxious and feel like I am forever in a vicious cycle. I work, pay bills, and that's all I feel like I am worth. 

I now I shouldn't compare myself to others, but it's hard not to these days. I hear people talk about their mortgage, student loans, or people at work whos husbands are farmers, paying off 250,000 dollars worth of farming equipment haha. It's crazy...

[MrsCHX]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The 3800 0percent APR expires in December, but by Feburary, I will have my taxes and paid time off to pay most of it off anyway, so that should be fine, even if it accrues a bit of interest.

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But, if you have 600-700 per month you should really push to get this paid off before the zero interest period expires. Because remember it won't be interest for just January and February; it will be from the time that the charges were incurred.

[Anonymous]

Agree with what everyone is saying. One easy to get job to do is Lyft or Uber and you can pretty much do it whenever you want. Have a friend who does this about three times a week to just pay of school loans for a few hours. Might be worth looking into depending on where you live. Maybe just doing Friday nights and Saturday nights when it's "prime time"