A new phase. Some real talk. Our history of bad financial decisions. And dealing with too much debt.
Hi again. I'm going to just be very real and honest in this post.
I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving, or at least a nice week if you don't celebrate it.
If you read my last blog post, you'd know that my husband had quit his job in July, and by the middle of September, he still didn't have a new one. Well, he has one now, and I am very thankful for it, for sure, but it hasn't solved the problems we have.
With his old job, we were bringing in $4000 a month. In this area, that's a pretty good income. Certainly, it's the most we'd ever made in our lives. We had that income for about 18 months-2 years, or close to it. During (or a little before) that time, we also got some money from my husband's grandparents' inheritance they left him. If you've followed my blog for a while, you already know this... if you haven't, then know this... WE ARE TERRIBLE WITH MONEY.
My husband simply ignores money and finances of any kind. He has no idea what kind of bills we have, who we owe, how much anything is per month, etc. He is vaguely aware of two loans that are in his name, because when we're late with a payment, he gets phone calls. So, when we get some extra money, he's all about paying those so they leave him alone, but we could be on the verge of losing our car, and he'd never know. I'm not saying this to disparage him, it is merely a fact, and he'll tell you the same thing.
I am no saint either. It seems like usually in a marriage, at least one partner is good with money. That is not the case here. I TRY, I do. I can make a budget like nobody's business. I can assign money to categories, I can divvy money into cash envelopes, I can do all of those things on paper. But when it comes time to actually DO things, I don't follow the budget. And since my husband is oblivious to anything money related, I can basically spend money how I want and I'm the only one who knows until a bill comes due and starts to call wanting to get paid. Now, this was bad practice of course, but it was not the end of the world when he was making so much money, because every Friday we got a paycheck of $545. So, there was just always some money coming in and usually enough to cover any bad decisions I made. But we had ZERO savings.
And that inheritance money... I'd like to say we used that money to replace the leaking window that's causing black mold or mildew in my living room, or got the leaking roof fixed or even replaced, or replace the collapsing front porch, or gut my kitchen and replace all the cabinets, or put a sizeable down payment on a good reliable car to build our credit and set up low payments and have reliable transportation. Yeah, no. We bought a 1999 Suburban that turned out to be completely rusted underneath due to the previous owner driving it on the beach all the time. I sunk so much money into it to try to make it last. We needed a large vehicle to carry the family at that time, but it was a bad bad bad decision. I did want to test drive a different better looking one, but my husband was in love with this beast of a vehicle, and I stupidly said OK GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. Then we needed a second vehicle, because the Suburban was not reliable anymore. So we used some to get another vehicle. It was a 2004 van and was a great deal. Nothing wrong with it but the water pump. It was a good car, but my husband wrecked it on an icy morning, and it's gone. More on the transportation issue later...
We spent about $2000 on my daughter's wedding. I do not regret any of that. It was a beautiful night, and I am so glad we could help make it happen. But all of those things really only came to about 1/4 of the total inheritance. Where did the rest go? I wish I had something to show for it, but really, I don't. Some lawn furniture, a new grill, so, there is that, but not much else. We were able to rent a moving van and go to FL and get his grandparents stuff they left him and bring it all home, and bought a shed to put it all in because it won't all fit in my house. Ok, we did pay off our house, so that was about $8000. So all of that's like another 1/4 I guess. But the really big issue we had with that money is that we didn't stop spending... I didn't make sure bills were paid. I didn't put half of it in saving (well I did, but we spent it too). By the time I came out of this WE HAVE MONEY LET'S GO BUY ALL THE THINGS mentality and realized I hadn't paid the bills, we no longer had the money to pay them. I used up the savings to get caught up on them, but it ended up not being enough, and we had to TAKE OUT A LOAN! We had to take out a LOAN to cover bills because we hadn't paid them with the inheritance money and then spent it all and then overspent. And there's nothing really to show for it!!!
Oh and get this. The house payment we wanted to get rid of by just paying that lump sum on the house - it was LESS than the loan payment we now have! I want to seriously just punch myself. Not long after that, he got the raise at work, and suddenly we were making a lot more each month than before. had we learned any lesson with the inheritance? Apparently not.
Back when he had to have cancer surgery and was out of work for 2 months, and we discovered we had voted no on short term disability for some STUPID reason, I had to take out another loan to have money to live on until he got a critical illness insurance payment. So, that's another big loan, and I had tp use the van I really liked as collateral. Then when the insurance money came in, did I pay the hospital? or the doctor? NOPE. The bills hadn't come in yet and the hospital and Dr office couldn't tell me how much to expect. It all had to go thru insurance first blah blah. but did I leave the money in savings until we got the bills? NOPE. It was spent.
If you hate me by this point, it's okay. You're not alone there.
In January or February, we had an ice storm, and instead of him trying to get someone who lived closer to go open the store, he went. He ran into a tree. Thank GOD he's okay, but the van was totaled. The insurance payoff was not enough to pay off the loan that was using the van as collateral. So we still have those payments. Of course we needed a reliable car. So we traded in the Suburban (got it to barely run enough to drive it to the dealership) and got a brand new Nissan Versa. It gets 35-40 mpg, and the payment per month is more than my house payment was too. But we did get the service plan that basically has all service paid for almost forever, so we don't have to worry about making sure we can afford an oil change or fix some little thing. We got a good warranty too. So I feel good about that, and I do love the car, but we still owe like $18k on it.
So, by the following July, we had the big loan with a payment higher than our old house payment, then a 2nd loan with a payment almost as big, and a car payment that was bigger than the old house payment. Plus a few "small" personal loans we had with places in town, but the payments were certainly adding up. I didn't really do a budget at that point. I just paid the bills and knew his checks every Friday would cover anything. Until they didn't come anymore.
I had about a week's notice. He texted me, probably in tears, after his district manager had left one day. He had been belittled and felt emasculated and bullied. He's been in retail management for over 20 years, and has dealt with lots of assholes and bitches, but this guy seemed to just be a sociopath. he never seemed to care about other human beings at all, only whether the bottom line was made and he got his bonus or whatever. The evil asshole kept telling him he'd probably get fired any day now. I kept telling him that it was fine, we could get by if we had to, and if he fired him, we'd be able to use the unemployment insurance we had on some of the bills, and of course, he'd get to draw an unemployment check while he was looking for work. And then he quit.
He didn't give notice. He just wrote a letter, and emailed it to the district manager asshole, also sent one to HIS boss, and then had a paper copy printed and had his asst manger hand it to the asshole next time he came in to make sure he got it, then he left.
We lived on his 401k which was like $3000 after they kept some back for taxes, but that barely took care of one month after I suddenly had to start paying for family medical insurance out of my checks, and my own checks went from $850-$1000 every two weeks to $550-$750 every 2 weeks. So yeah our take home income went from $4000 a month to $1200 a month.
I immediately cancelled every subscription service we had, and did a quick number crunching to see how bad things were. That's when the depression started to take hold.
One day he said he'd heard we could donate plasma and get paid for it, and he was going to go do that. Then came home dejected and upset he'd wasted gas to drive there (45 minutes away), because apparently if you've had a heart attack, you can never donate plasma ever, for the rest of your life.
So, I tried the following week. My anxiety was pretty high, but I was trying really hard. I got there, and the place was FULL of people. I felt like I was the only one there who didn't know what they were doing, and they asked for SS card, which I didn't have. So, another wasted trip. I was upset with him for not telling me what I had to take He asked me why I didn't research it and see what I had to take. This was around the time my feelings for him started to really shift.
Many days I'd wake up and find him still in bed. (I work nights and sleep days), and ask if he'd gotten any calls or applied anywhere. Most days he hadn't. Finally, after MONTHS of being unemployed and the bills started to not get paid because the 401k money was gone, money people gave us was gone, the phone calls had started from creditors - then he applied at Giant Retail Place. WTF hadn't he applied there the day after he quit, I have no f***ing idea. But lo and behold, he got hired at Giant Retail Place. He makes $11/hr and gets 4 days a week usually, but it's not guaranteed. In fact this week, he only has 3 days.
So, we went from $4000 a month to $1200 a month to now we bring in about $2400 a month. Our monthly average utilities and minimum payments (not even counting medical bills that I guess will just go to collections because I just can't pay them) come to about $2400. But that does not include groceries and gas, or things like feminine products, or cat food, or light bulbs, etc. Also, it doesn't take into account the fact that we're like about 2 months behind in almost everything, so there's much larger minimum payments due, late fees accruing, etc.
So, I told my anxiety to GTFO and renewed one of my small personal loans (don't yell at me, it was necessary this month), so I didn't have to make a payment on that one this month, and the $175 I got back from it covered a bill I had to pay and left about $16, so I went to the DMV and got my name on my drivers license fixed to match my SS card. When I got married 27 years ago and changed it, for some dumb reason the person working there put my maiden name as my middle name. I didn't notice at first, and it didn't seem like a big deal, so I never changed it. But these days, identity is a huge thing, like with voting etc, and it turns out, for donating plasma. So, now my DL and SS card match, and this Saturday (tomorrow) I am going to the plasma donation place as early as I can, sitting for as long as it takes and crossing my fingers that they don't find anything wrong with my blood or history, and let me donate and pay me. If it all works, then I will try my best to do it every Wednesday and Saturday, which are 2 of my days off. If I get offered overtime on Saturdays though, then I'll do that instead since it means not using gas to drive there, and while I do have to wait til I get my paycheck, it will probably end up being more money than I'd get at the plasma place.
I have been watching an amazing person on YouTube, Stacey Flowers, who also hit rock bottom basically, due to emotional reasons, and is on her own journey to get out of debt. She's following the Dave Ramsey plan, and I've learned a lot from her and been so inspired! I have Dave's book as well, and am reading it now, and trying to implement as much as I can. Living on practically nothing has been really hard, but it's also really opened my eyes. I think back on all that money we were bringing in, and how we frittered it away and kept renewing loans needlessly, and not staying on top of things or sticking to a budget or savings plan... it makes me ill. Like physically ill. The worst part, is it's not the first time. This is absolutely a repeating pattern in our lives. But this time, something is different.
In 1998 (I think it was), we filed bankruptcy, due to the enormous amounts of credit card debt we'd accrued. When my husband graduated college, every credit card company sent him a card, and neither of us had been taught anything about money or credit or anything to do with money. It was free money! Yeah obviously that didn't last long. We struggled and struggled, and finally went to a lawyer and asked how we could still pay all our debts, but get them to stop threatening us basically. He looked it all over and said we should file bankruptcy, mainly because there was just no way we'd be able to pay that with what he made. I was a SAHM with 3 kids under the age of 6. And he told us, it was the credit card companies' fault. They should have known better than to offer a college grad with no real career job all this credit. They didn't deserve to get their money back, and they would just absorb the loss. No big deal. So, we never blamed ourselves.
Fast forward to 2005 when our world began to crumble again. We'd started doing really well. He had a good job. I had a job. We had 4 beautiful girls. We just bought a brand new mini van. I remember in November of 2005, my Mom asked if we were doing okay, and I smiled and could honestly answer that yes we were. She passed away the next day. A week before Thanksgiving. I went into a depression, and before I could try to get out of it, in January 2006, my husband came home and said he'd been laid off. They downsized, and he was the next one on the list to go. At that time, we didn't have a ton of bills, just the minivan really, and he got unemployment checks. So we were able to make do, but he did eventually get a job at Blockbuster (remember those?). Unfortunately, the stress of that job was too much along with his sleep apnea which he never really dealt with, and in January 2007 (a year to THE DAY after his layoff) he had a heart attack. We had no health insurance (by choice). He lived, he's fine now. But after a chopper ride to the heart hospital and all those doctors and surgeons and two stents and a week in ICU, and a second angina scare and another procedure and hospital stay, we were well over $200,000 in debt. After going back to work, he realized the stress was actually going to kill him, so he quit. They repo'd our van that Fall while I was shopping with my kids. Thinking back, those kids are the only thing that got me thru those days. I HAD to. So, you guessed it, we filed for bankruptcy again. He did get another job back at his first employer. They had a new manager who didn't know my husband at all, but was impressed with him and within 6 months, he was assistant manager! We were able to get another van at a buy-here-pay-here place, and started rebuilding our lives yet again. But as for the bankruptcy, it was always the heart attack's fault, the medical bills fault, never our fault for deciding to forego medical insurance that year for the first time since we'd been able to get full time benefits ever. We just never blamed ourselves.
We never took the blame for any of it. These things HAPPENED TO US. We didn't cause any of it. It wasn't our fault for racking up all that credit card debt. It wasn't our fault medical insurance for a family was so expensive, and we preferred to have more pocket money every month. We were young and healthy right? WRONG. All of it was WRONG. It WAS TOTALLY OUR FAULT. All of it!
No, we are NOT filing bankruptcy again. I am going to get this crap under control. I am going to get US under control. I have drawn up a monthly budget and broken it down by paychecks so I know where every dollar is going. I'm trying not to round up. I want to know where every cent is going. I keep a notebook with me and anytime I use the cash I carry, I write it down as if it's in a check register, and we plan to use it sparingly. Once it's gone, it's gone.
I am making my husband sit down with me and go over the budget each month and then each pay period with me so he knows exactly what's left after bills. And he knows he can't just use the debit card in the pop machines at work, because the money does not just magically appears to cover those. He can't just stop at Hardees on his way to work for a sausage biscuit. If he does, then it goes into overdraft and there's a $32 fee and suddenly we can't pay the water bill next month. He has to know and actually be aware of these things. I make him pay some bills as well. When something is due to be paid in the budget, I show him the budget and explain how much he needs to withdraw and which bills have to be paid in person. So he has to go talk to those people face to face, and feel what it's like when they tell you "your next payment is due in 3 days, when will you be in to pay?", and you have to tell them it'll be another month, and we're sorry it's late, but we're trying to get back on course.
I wish he could donate plasma. If we were both able to do it, we could bring in another $800 a month. Yeah I wasn't aware it paid that well, but for an older, heavier person, we can get like $50 each time and we can go twice a week. So, that's $400 a month per person. Sadly he can't donate, so that's out, but I'd sure insist he did it too, if he could. I'm not letting him just slide through life without being intensely aware of our finances all the time. I've had to be the only one carrying this load, and now we're sharing it.
So, right now, it's about bringing in more money so we can cover all the bills and have money for food and necessities. Then, it will be all about saving up an emergency fund so these damn loans can stop being renewed. Once we have a fully funded $1000 emergency fund, we are going to snowball these debts. I have them listed in order of smallest to largest balance. We have also talked with some of the creditors who we're super behind on and seeing if we can work out a lower payment and forgive some late fees etc. So far, it's going well. I think we'll be able to get starts on actually saving really soon. It's going to mean bare bones grocery shopping, but I think we can do it. If it were just me and my husband, it would be no problem, but I do need to make sure my 16 yr old eats well at least. They're home-schooled, so no free/reduced lunch there. Just whatever is in the fridge and pantry, so I need to keep that in mind. This last shopping trip came in under $100, so I think I can actually do this. We just have to be creative and let go of the idea of meat in every meal.
My husband had actually been on a vegan diet before he quit, but we can't afford the foods he'd eat. He'd eat a ton of salad every day and Buddha bowls etc. The problem is, we have opposite diet restrictions when he's on a vegan diet. I have to have a lot of protein including meats, and there are very few veggies I can have raw, so salads are out for me. But I think I can make it work.
I'm hoping to remember to share this journey with you all. I'd like to do blog posts of shopping trips, and show what I got and how much it came to, etc. Maybe some new recipes I found that are super cheap to make. I'm wanting to have y'all and this blog hold me accountable. I really need accountability.
Thank you if you've read this far, and I hope you'll come back and share this journey with me.
I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving, or at least a nice week if you don't celebrate it.
If you read my last blog post, you'd know that my husband had quit his job in July, and by the middle of September, he still didn't have a new one. Well, he has one now, and I am very thankful for it, for sure, but it hasn't solved the problems we have.
With his old job, we were bringing in $4000 a month. In this area, that's a pretty good income. Certainly, it's the most we'd ever made in our lives. We had that income for about 18 months-2 years, or close to it. During (or a little before) that time, we also got some money from my husband's grandparents' inheritance they left him. If you've followed my blog for a while, you already know this... if you haven't, then know this... WE ARE TERRIBLE WITH MONEY.
My husband simply ignores money and finances of any kind. He has no idea what kind of bills we have, who we owe, how much anything is per month, etc. He is vaguely aware of two loans that are in his name, because when we're late with a payment, he gets phone calls. So, when we get some extra money, he's all about paying those so they leave him alone, but we could be on the verge of losing our car, and he'd never know. I'm not saying this to disparage him, it is merely a fact, and he'll tell you the same thing.
I am no saint either. It seems like usually in a marriage, at least one partner is good with money. That is not the case here. I TRY, I do. I can make a budget like nobody's business. I can assign money to categories, I can divvy money into cash envelopes, I can do all of those things on paper. But when it comes time to actually DO things, I don't follow the budget. And since my husband is oblivious to anything money related, I can basically spend money how I want and I'm the only one who knows until a bill comes due and starts to call wanting to get paid. Now, this was bad practice of course, but it was not the end of the world when he was making so much money, because every Friday we got a paycheck of $545. So, there was just always some money coming in and usually enough to cover any bad decisions I made. But we had ZERO savings.
And that inheritance money... I'd like to say we used that money to replace the leaking window that's causing black mold or mildew in my living room, or got the leaking roof fixed or even replaced, or replace the collapsing front porch, or gut my kitchen and replace all the cabinets, or put a sizeable down payment on a good reliable car to build our credit and set up low payments and have reliable transportation. Yeah, no. We bought a 1999 Suburban that turned out to be completely rusted underneath due to the previous owner driving it on the beach all the time. I sunk so much money into it to try to make it last. We needed a large vehicle to carry the family at that time, but it was a bad bad bad decision. I did want to test drive a different better looking one, but my husband was in love with this beast of a vehicle, and I stupidly said OK GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. Then we needed a second vehicle, because the Suburban was not reliable anymore. So we used some to get another vehicle. It was a 2004 van and was a great deal. Nothing wrong with it but the water pump. It was a good car, but my husband wrecked it on an icy morning, and it's gone. More on the transportation issue later...
We spent about $2000 on my daughter's wedding. I do not regret any of that. It was a beautiful night, and I am so glad we could help make it happen. But all of those things really only came to about 1/4 of the total inheritance. Where did the rest go? I wish I had something to show for it, but really, I don't. Some lawn furniture, a new grill, so, there is that, but not much else. We were able to rent a moving van and go to FL and get his grandparents stuff they left him and bring it all home, and bought a shed to put it all in because it won't all fit in my house. Ok, we did pay off our house, so that was about $8000. So all of that's like another 1/4 I guess. But the really big issue we had with that money is that we didn't stop spending... I didn't make sure bills were paid. I didn't put half of it in saving (well I did, but we spent it too). By the time I came out of this WE HAVE MONEY LET'S GO BUY ALL THE THINGS mentality and realized I hadn't paid the bills, we no longer had the money to pay them. I used up the savings to get caught up on them, but it ended up not being enough, and we had to TAKE OUT A LOAN! We had to take out a LOAN to cover bills because we hadn't paid them with the inheritance money and then spent it all and then overspent. And there's nothing really to show for it!!!
Oh and get this. The house payment we wanted to get rid of by just paying that lump sum on the house - it was LESS than the loan payment we now have! I want to seriously just punch myself. Not long after that, he got the raise at work, and suddenly we were making a lot more each month than before. had we learned any lesson with the inheritance? Apparently not.
Back when he had to have cancer surgery and was out of work for 2 months, and we discovered we had voted no on short term disability for some STUPID reason, I had to take out another loan to have money to live on until he got a critical illness insurance payment. So, that's another big loan, and I had tp use the van I really liked as collateral. Then when the insurance money came in, did I pay the hospital? or the doctor? NOPE. The bills hadn't come in yet and the hospital and Dr office couldn't tell me how much to expect. It all had to go thru insurance first blah blah. but did I leave the money in savings until we got the bills? NOPE. It was spent.
If you hate me by this point, it's okay. You're not alone there.
In January or February, we had an ice storm, and instead of him trying to get someone who lived closer to go open the store, he went. He ran into a tree. Thank GOD he's okay, but the van was totaled. The insurance payoff was not enough to pay off the loan that was using the van as collateral. So we still have those payments. Of course we needed a reliable car. So we traded in the Suburban (got it to barely run enough to drive it to the dealership) and got a brand new Nissan Versa. It gets 35-40 mpg, and the payment per month is more than my house payment was too. But we did get the service plan that basically has all service paid for almost forever, so we don't have to worry about making sure we can afford an oil change or fix some little thing. We got a good warranty too. So I feel good about that, and I do love the car, but we still owe like $18k on it.
So, by the following July, we had the big loan with a payment higher than our old house payment, then a 2nd loan with a payment almost as big, and a car payment that was bigger than the old house payment. Plus a few "small" personal loans we had with places in town, but the payments were certainly adding up. I didn't really do a budget at that point. I just paid the bills and knew his checks every Friday would cover anything. Until they didn't come anymore.
I had about a week's notice. He texted me, probably in tears, after his district manager had left one day. He had been belittled and felt emasculated and bullied. He's been in retail management for over 20 years, and has dealt with lots of assholes and bitches, but this guy seemed to just be a sociopath. he never seemed to care about other human beings at all, only whether the bottom line was made and he got his bonus or whatever. The evil asshole kept telling him he'd probably get fired any day now. I kept telling him that it was fine, we could get by if we had to, and if he fired him, we'd be able to use the unemployment insurance we had on some of the bills, and of course, he'd get to draw an unemployment check while he was looking for work. And then he quit.
He didn't give notice. He just wrote a letter, and emailed it to the district manager asshole, also sent one to HIS boss, and then had a paper copy printed and had his asst manger hand it to the asshole next time he came in to make sure he got it, then he left.
We lived on his 401k which was like $3000 after they kept some back for taxes, but that barely took care of one month after I suddenly had to start paying for family medical insurance out of my checks, and my own checks went from $850-$1000 every two weeks to $550-$750 every 2 weeks. So yeah our take home income went from $4000 a month to $1200 a month.
I immediately cancelled every subscription service we had, and did a quick number crunching to see how bad things were. That's when the depression started to take hold.
One day he said he'd heard we could donate plasma and get paid for it, and he was going to go do that. Then came home dejected and upset he'd wasted gas to drive there (45 minutes away), because apparently if you've had a heart attack, you can never donate plasma ever, for the rest of your life.
So, I tried the following week. My anxiety was pretty high, but I was trying really hard. I got there, and the place was FULL of people. I felt like I was the only one there who didn't know what they were doing, and they asked for SS card, which I didn't have. So, another wasted trip. I was upset with him for not telling me what I had to take He asked me why I didn't research it and see what I had to take. This was around the time my feelings for him started to really shift.
Many days I'd wake up and find him still in bed. (I work nights and sleep days), and ask if he'd gotten any calls or applied anywhere. Most days he hadn't. Finally, after MONTHS of being unemployed and the bills started to not get paid because the 401k money was gone, money people gave us was gone, the phone calls had started from creditors - then he applied at Giant Retail Place. WTF hadn't he applied there the day after he quit, I have no f***ing idea. But lo and behold, he got hired at Giant Retail Place. He makes $11/hr and gets 4 days a week usually, but it's not guaranteed. In fact this week, he only has 3 days.
So, we went from $4000 a month to $1200 a month to now we bring in about $2400 a month. Our monthly average utilities and minimum payments (not even counting medical bills that I guess will just go to collections because I just can't pay them) come to about $2400. But that does not include groceries and gas, or things like feminine products, or cat food, or light bulbs, etc. Also, it doesn't take into account the fact that we're like about 2 months behind in almost everything, so there's much larger minimum payments due, late fees accruing, etc.
So, I told my anxiety to GTFO and renewed one of my small personal loans (don't yell at me, it was necessary this month), so I didn't have to make a payment on that one this month, and the $175 I got back from it covered a bill I had to pay and left about $16, so I went to the DMV and got my name on my drivers license fixed to match my SS card. When I got married 27 years ago and changed it, for some dumb reason the person working there put my maiden name as my middle name. I didn't notice at first, and it didn't seem like a big deal, so I never changed it. But these days, identity is a huge thing, like with voting etc, and it turns out, for donating plasma. So, now my DL and SS card match, and this Saturday (tomorrow) I am going to the plasma donation place as early as I can, sitting for as long as it takes and crossing my fingers that they don't find anything wrong with my blood or history, and let me donate and pay me. If it all works, then I will try my best to do it every Wednesday and Saturday, which are 2 of my days off. If I get offered overtime on Saturdays though, then I'll do that instead since it means not using gas to drive there, and while I do have to wait til I get my paycheck, it will probably end up being more money than I'd get at the plasma place.
I have been watching an amazing person on YouTube, Stacey Flowers, who also hit rock bottom basically, due to emotional reasons, and is on her own journey to get out of debt. She's following the Dave Ramsey plan, and I've learned a lot from her and been so inspired! I have Dave's book as well, and am reading it now, and trying to implement as much as I can. Living on practically nothing has been really hard, but it's also really opened my eyes. I think back on all that money we were bringing in, and how we frittered it away and kept renewing loans needlessly, and not staying on top of things or sticking to a budget or savings plan... it makes me ill. Like physically ill. The worst part, is it's not the first time. This is absolutely a repeating pattern in our lives. But this time, something is different.
In 1998 (I think it was), we filed bankruptcy, due to the enormous amounts of credit card debt we'd accrued. When my husband graduated college, every credit card company sent him a card, and neither of us had been taught anything about money or credit or anything to do with money. It was free money! Yeah obviously that didn't last long. We struggled and struggled, and finally went to a lawyer and asked how we could still pay all our debts, but get them to stop threatening us basically. He looked it all over and said we should file bankruptcy, mainly because there was just no way we'd be able to pay that with what he made. I was a SAHM with 3 kids under the age of 6. And he told us, it was the credit card companies' fault. They should have known better than to offer a college grad with no real career job all this credit. They didn't deserve to get their money back, and they would just absorb the loss. No big deal. So, we never blamed ourselves.
Fast forward to 2005 when our world began to crumble again. We'd started doing really well. He had a good job. I had a job. We had 4 beautiful girls. We just bought a brand new mini van. I remember in November of 2005, my Mom asked if we were doing okay, and I smiled and could honestly answer that yes we were. She passed away the next day. A week before Thanksgiving. I went into a depression, and before I could try to get out of it, in January 2006, my husband came home and said he'd been laid off. They downsized, and he was the next one on the list to go. At that time, we didn't have a ton of bills, just the minivan really, and he got unemployment checks. So we were able to make do, but he did eventually get a job at Blockbuster (remember those?). Unfortunately, the stress of that job was too much along with his sleep apnea which he never really dealt with, and in January 2007 (a year to THE DAY after his layoff) he had a heart attack. We had no health insurance (by choice). He lived, he's fine now. But after a chopper ride to the heart hospital and all those doctors and surgeons and two stents and a week in ICU, and a second angina scare and another procedure and hospital stay, we were well over $200,000 in debt. After going back to work, he realized the stress was actually going to kill him, so he quit. They repo'd our van that Fall while I was shopping with my kids. Thinking back, those kids are the only thing that got me thru those days. I HAD to. So, you guessed it, we filed for bankruptcy again. He did get another job back at his first employer. They had a new manager who didn't know my husband at all, but was impressed with him and within 6 months, he was assistant manager! We were able to get another van at a buy-here-pay-here place, and started rebuilding our lives yet again. But as for the bankruptcy, it was always the heart attack's fault, the medical bills fault, never our fault for deciding to forego medical insurance that year for the first time since we'd been able to get full time benefits ever. We just never blamed ourselves.
We never took the blame for any of it. These things HAPPENED TO US. We didn't cause any of it. It wasn't our fault for racking up all that credit card debt. It wasn't our fault medical insurance for a family was so expensive, and we preferred to have more pocket money every month. We were young and healthy right? WRONG. All of it was WRONG. It WAS TOTALLY OUR FAULT. All of it!
No, we are NOT filing bankruptcy again. I am going to get this crap under control. I am going to get US under control. I have drawn up a monthly budget and broken it down by paychecks so I know where every dollar is going. I'm trying not to round up. I want to know where every cent is going. I keep a notebook with me and anytime I use the cash I carry, I write it down as if it's in a check register, and we plan to use it sparingly. Once it's gone, it's gone.
I am making my husband sit down with me and go over the budget each month and then each pay period with me so he knows exactly what's left after bills. And he knows he can't just use the debit card in the pop machines at work, because the money does not just magically appears to cover those. He can't just stop at Hardees on his way to work for a sausage biscuit. If he does, then it goes into overdraft and there's a $32 fee and suddenly we can't pay the water bill next month. He has to know and actually be aware of these things. I make him pay some bills as well. When something is due to be paid in the budget, I show him the budget and explain how much he needs to withdraw and which bills have to be paid in person. So he has to go talk to those people face to face, and feel what it's like when they tell you "your next payment is due in 3 days, when will you be in to pay?", and you have to tell them it'll be another month, and we're sorry it's late, but we're trying to get back on course.
I wish he could donate plasma. If we were both able to do it, we could bring in another $800 a month. Yeah I wasn't aware it paid that well, but for an older, heavier person, we can get like $50 each time and we can go twice a week. So, that's $400 a month per person. Sadly he can't donate, so that's out, but I'd sure insist he did it too, if he could. I'm not letting him just slide through life without being intensely aware of our finances all the time. I've had to be the only one carrying this load, and now we're sharing it.
So, right now, it's about bringing in more money so we can cover all the bills and have money for food and necessities. Then, it will be all about saving up an emergency fund so these damn loans can stop being renewed. Once we have a fully funded $1000 emergency fund, we are going to snowball these debts. I have them listed in order of smallest to largest balance. We have also talked with some of the creditors who we're super behind on and seeing if we can work out a lower payment and forgive some late fees etc. So far, it's going well. I think we'll be able to get starts on actually saving really soon. It's going to mean bare bones grocery shopping, but I think we can do it. If it were just me and my husband, it would be no problem, but I do need to make sure my 16 yr old eats well at least. They're home-schooled, so no free/reduced lunch there. Just whatever is in the fridge and pantry, so I need to keep that in mind. This last shopping trip came in under $100, so I think I can actually do this. We just have to be creative and let go of the idea of meat in every meal.
My husband had actually been on a vegan diet before he quit, but we can't afford the foods he'd eat. He'd eat a ton of salad every day and Buddha bowls etc. The problem is, we have opposite diet restrictions when he's on a vegan diet. I have to have a lot of protein including meats, and there are very few veggies I can have raw, so salads are out for me. But I think I can make it work.
I'm hoping to remember to share this journey with you all. I'd like to do blog posts of shopping trips, and show what I got and how much it came to, etc. Maybe some new recipes I found that are super cheap to make. I'm wanting to have y'all and this blog hold me accountable. I really need accountability.
Thank you if you've read this far, and I hope you'll come back and share this journey with me.
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I love getting comments, and I read every one. Thanks for coming by my site and reading my ramblings. I hope you have a wonderful day! -Patty