cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

I am torn. Help?

tag
aijuswanacheef
Valued Member

I am torn. Help?

Hopefully this is the right board. I suppose I don't even have a question. I just need to express.

My goal is to garden like hell and find a home within 3 years as my baddies start falling off 2022/2023. I've been employed with a rent-to-own furniture company for 1.5yrs. I make $36,000 annually, working 50hrs per week. I live 5 minutes from work. My car is paid for and worth at least $5K. However, it has 180K miles on it.

I got an offer to work at a correctional facility. Base pay is $32,000, but overtime is strongly encouraged and base pay increases after certification. I can easily pull in well over $52,000 working 60 hrs per week. Great benefits, pays for school (6 credit hours per semester — I start Fall '19), and other amazing perks. Commute is nearly an hour across state lines.

I have a vehicle repo ($5200), a personal line of credit default ($1300), 3 collections ($2500). One paid charge off ($500) and a settled charge off ($970 of $2400). My scores are 580-620. I have a secured card ($200), an unsecured ($300) and 3 store cards ($1500). I want all of these paid before I even speak to a lender. I don't plan on apping for new credit for 12 months.

I have a wife and a baby girl. My checks are enough to pay rent, groceries, and all bills and utilities. My wife's checks go to childcare and repaying my auto loan ($250/mo. for the next 24 months). We are not struggling by any means. The issue is, we had about $4K saved up for a down payment fund. We decided to use it to put toward our debts and other financial roadblocks. We have no money saved, and I fear we won't be able to re-fund enough in our savings for the down payment we wanted. I know there is down payment assistance.

I know taking the new job would help tremendously. If my math is correct, I will be bringing home $600-800 extra per month to go straight to our Ally savings (or mutual fund). I worry about sacrificing time with my family. The city the job is in is, in my opinion, run down. My daughter doesn't start school for at least 4 years, but I would like to work and live in a city with at least a halfway decent school district. Plus, obviously, it's a much more dangerous job.

I thought about selling my car and toughing it out at my current job, but it won't fix the saving issue long-term. I have read here paying collections and COs in full isn't always required or encouraged by lenders. I gained over 50pts. by paying off two, but I know others sometimes trend in the opposite direction.

My DTI is over 60%. I certainly have expenses that can be reduced or eliminated to save more money if I chose to stay at my current job. But I think tackling my debt first is key.

I really want to get out of this renting cycle and start building assets. But I don't want to rush the process and miss out on a better opportunity that comes with patience.

If you read all of this, you deserve a cookie.





Message 1 of 12
11 REPLIES 11
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I am torn. Help?


@aijuswanacheef wrote:
Hopefully this is the right board. I suppose I don't even have a question. I just need to express.

My goal is to garden like hell and find a home within 3 years as my baddies start falling off 2022/2023. I've been employed with a rent-to-own furniture company for 1.5yrs. I make $36,000 annually, working 50hrs per week. I live 5 minutes from work. My car is paid for and worth at least $5K. However, it has 180K miles on it.

I got an offer to work at a correctional facility. Base pay is $32,000, but overtime is strongly encouraged and base pay increases after certification. I can easily pull in well over $52,000 working 60 hrs per week. Great benefits, pays for school (6 credit hours per semester — I start Fall '19), and other amazing perks. Commute is nearly an hour across state lines.

I have a vehicle repo ($5200), a personal line of credit default ($1300), 3 collections ($2500). One paid charge off ($500) and a settled charge off ($970 of $2400). My scores are 580-620. I have a secured card ($200), an unsecured ($300) and 3 store cards ($1500). I want all of these paid before I even speak to a lender. I don't plan on apping for new credit for 12 months.

I have a wife and a baby girl. My checks are enough to pay rent, groceries, and all bills and utilities. My wife's checks go to childcare and repaying my auto loan ($250/mo. for the next 24 months). We are not struggling by any means. The issue is, we had about $4K saved up for a down payment fund. We decided to use it to put toward our debts and other financial roadblocks. We have no money saved, and I fear we won't be able to re-fund enough in our savings for the down payment we wanted. I know there is down payment assistance.

I know taking the new job would help tremendously. If my math is correct, I will be bringing home $600-800 extra per month to go straight to our Ally savings (or mutual fund). I worry about sacrificing time with my family. The city the job is in is, in my opinion, run down. My daughter doesn't start school for at least 4 years, but I would like to work and live in a city with at least a halfway decent school district. Plus, obviously, it's a much more dangerous job.

I thought about selling my car and toughing it out at my current job, but it won't fix the saving issue long-term. I have read here paying collections and COs in full isn't always required or encouraged by lenders. I gained over 50pts. by paying off two, but I know others sometimes trend in the opposite direction.

My DTI is over 60%. I certainly have expenses that can be reduced or eliminated to save more money if I chose to stay at my current job. But I think tackling my debt first is key.

I really want to get out of this renting cycle and start building assets. But I don't want to rush the process and miss out on a better opportunity that comes with patience.

If you read all of this, you deserve a cookie.

My wife and I own a midsized realestate brokerage firm. We are also the listing  brokers for most major banks foreclosures in 5 counties.

 

Several moving parts.   HUD (go to hudhomestore.com) has a program called the good neighbor program that offers discounts to SOME but not all Hud homes. Law Enforcement is included but IDK if correctional officer is included in the term law enforcement.   The discount is 50%.    I have never seen any one close on a home loan with open collections.    Your FICO  scores need to come up.    You DTI is out the roof and needs to come down. If you take/get  the job either 1) you  make want to move family closer to job  2) Law Enforcement is very  stressful and hard on families  3) If you drive for an hour a day each way  you will loose family time and once   its gone its something that you can never regain  4) If you drive all that time  you will need lots of car repair/ tune up or another  lower  mileage car    At some point I would talk  with an FHA lender and see what they suggest  

 

See Private Message.  Good luck 

 

 

Message 2 of 12
aijuswanacheef
Valued Member

Re: I am torn. Help?

I'll look into the HUD homes, for sure. Hadn't come across that. I want to make sure I'm understanding DTI right: I got the 60% by taking my total outstanding debt (collections, loans, COs, etc.) and dividing that by my annual income. But, I'm reading now it's your monthly payments divided by monthly income, which puts me at 30%, which is better but not ideal. The stress is something we've dealt with; my wife did the same a few years back and we managed fine. But this was before baby. THAT is what holds me back. Maybe it's just meant to be temporary until I finish school. And with the car thing, my wife's is a newer, lower mileage car. My current car was gifted to me. I'm going to run it into the ground lol.





Message 3 of 12
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I am torn. Help?

aijuswanacheef what I will mention for housing may not be available every where (often times it is geography based ) but, there are programs for: First Time Home Buyers, loans from your State Housing & Finance Agency, USDA (usually for communities under a certain population like 20,000) but there are other USDA loans (they say they are looking for a FICO Score of 640 minimum) from them along with various types of FHA and VA. Conventional usually is around with requirements for at least 20% down so not for everyone along with Cash of course.

 

As I recall loan types change from time to time and it seemed to me a FICO Score of 580 for the 3.5% down (note there are lenders that mention scores down to FICO 500 with 10% down) usually opens the door. Now there are many varieties of FICO Scoring or other brands so I will not venture a guess on which one a lender would use and the local realtors would generally know as well as the lenders.

 

Checking around your geographic area of interest should yield some information, certainly realtors should have an idea and putting in a call to the Housing Agency at your State Capital should yield what types of loans they could point you towards. Yes, there are options and it may be worth your time to explore them. Might surprise you what can be done.

Message 4 of 12
CreditInspired
Community Leader
Super Contributor

Re: I am torn. Help?

Hi OP

 

My concern for you is based on time allotment. Hear me out:

 

Present job $36K, 50-hr wk and basically no commute time. 

 

Prospect job $32K (already $4K decrease in salary), possible to $52K w/OT and 1-hr commute time (one way or RT?)

 

So, by starting school Fall of 2019, if you took the prospect job and worked tons of OT (60-hr wk) to make $52K, and then the commute back and forth from working long and exhausting hours, where

is the time for work and life balance. Will you even have time or energy to do homework?

 

Also, now you have another expense you hadnt put into the equation. Gas, insurance for extra mileage, and maintenance on the vehicle. 

 

So, IMHO, it’s definitely your and DWs decision, but now you have additional input to think about. 

 

Whatever you decide, GL2U. 


|| AmX Cash Magnet $40.5K || NFCU CashRewards $30K || Discover IT $24.7K || Macys $24.2K || NFCU CLOC $15K || NFCU Platinum $15K || CitiCostco $12.7K || Chase FU $12.7K || Apple Card $7K || BOA CashRewards $6K
Message 5 of 12
Revelate
Moderator Emeritus

Re: I am torn. Help?

CreditInspired mostly made the points I was going to but I assumed it was one way:

That is 20 extra hours a week, why not pick up a part time job closer to home if you can?

I have tried to do the school thing and the work thing, it is hard with a real job, really hard. Sure I was chasing top 50 schools but still, the fact remains I struggled badly in upper division while maintaining a real gig and I don’t have anyone else in my life.

Working two jobs for me is easy in comparison: three gigs I was struggling even worse than school, but school has additional distractions for me anyway, jobs generally don’t for all that I walked to the bar with a client a few nights ago hah.



        
Message 6 of 12
CreditInspired
Community Leader
Super Contributor

Re: I am torn. Help?


@Revelate wrote:
CreditInspired mostly made the points I was going to but I assumed it was one way:

That is 20 extra hours a week, why not pick up a part time job closer to home if you can?

I have tried to do the school thing and the work thing, it is hard with a real job, really hard. Sure I was chasing top 50 schools but still, the fact remains I struggled badly in upper division while maintaining a real gig and I don’t have anyone else in my life.

Working two jobs for me is easy in comparison: three gigs I was struggling even worse than school, but school has additional distractions for me anyway, jobs generally don’t for all that I walked to the bar with a client a few nights ago hah.

+1

Getting a PT job close to where you live is an excellent idea. And since you already qualified to be a correctional officer, you would be a shoo-in for a second shift security guard. Why this is a great PT job? You have both the opprtunity and quiet time to do your schoolwork, in essence, killing 2 birds with 1 stone so-to-speak. 


|| AmX Cash Magnet $40.5K || NFCU CashRewards $30K || Discover IT $24.7K || Macys $24.2K || NFCU CLOC $15K || NFCU Platinum $15K || CitiCostco $12.7K || Chase FU $12.7K || Apple Card $7K || BOA CashRewards $6K
Message 7 of 12
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I am torn. Help?

I don't have kids and I am retired so I don't have any good advice but the other posters have provided some valuable information. Whatever you decide to do I wish you and your family good luck.

Message 8 of 12
tcbofade
Super Contributor

Re: I am torn. Help?

You don't mention what area you are in, but assuming that you are in a good sized city, 20 hours a weekend at the local pizza joint delivering pizzas in your older, high mileage car could net you $20k a year easily...

02/01/24 Fico 8: EX 757, EQ 803, TU 783.
Fico 9: EX 760 12/16/23, EQ 790 02/04/24, TU No idea.

Zero percent financing is where the devil lives...
Message 9 of 12
kudosalert
Frequent Contributor

Re: I am torn. Help?

yeah i'm with TCBOFADE on this one. i would try to look outside the box a bit in terms of sources of additional income. correctional officer job doesnt sound like a whole lot of fun for me on top of the extra hours and commute. try looking for PT that gives you some flexibility especially with school. while i college i did sports officiating part-time. it was well paid 30$/hr (about 3hrs a day x 3 days a week). pet sitting/visits is popular as well. just giving you some ideas. good luck.



In my wallet:


In my desk:
Message 10 of 12
Advertiser Disclosure: The offers that appear on this site are from third party advertisers from whom FICO receives compensation.