by creditcruncher on July 2, 2009
Who the heck is Credit Cruncher??
Its a little cheesy but I might as well make paying off this debt somewhat fun….
I am 26 years old with a career as a commercial lender so I see finances day in and day out. Unfortunately I see all too often people that do not take care of their finances and how it has come back to bite them (bad credit, low liquidity, terrible loan to value). However, I also see lots who are taking advantage of the discounted opportunities available today because they took care of their finances in the beginning. Now they have the savings available to put down the required 20% down on a great investment property, purchase a new business, or take that vacation they’ve always wanted.
How I got where I am today…
Coming out of college, I thought I had a good hold on my finances and spending. I started a budget and had a “financial plan” but slowly fell off track and accumulated close to $20,000 in various credit card debt. I’ve always paid my bills on time and planned to pay it off each month but between daily purchases, trips, house maintenance, car maintenance, gifts, managing multiple credit cards, I eventually accumulated far too much debt.
Basically, a lot of reckless spending which is now making me aware of the opportunities I am missing out on by not saving better.
I’ve continued to monitor my spending through various programs over the last year but really committed to changing things in January. I currently use Mint.com & Quicken and have taken the debt from $20,000 in January to $16,000 now. I plan to have it down to at least $10,000 by the end of the year and all of it paid off by next May. I am currently putting at least $770/month to paying down this debt. Thus choosing to put so much towards debt reduction has forced me to review my lifestyle and day to day choices.
My other debts include:
$24,000-Student Loans
$21,268-Vehicle
$188,000-House (co-own)
After getting my credit card debt under control I plan to focus on increasing my emergency fund, eliminating the vehicle debt and increasing contributions to Roth IRA.
What else have you done besides dig a giant debt hole??
Although my credit card debt got a little excessive the last few years, I have been able to to set in place a good habits. First, from day 1 of my job, I contributed to my 401K and maxed out the company match. I funded a 3 month emergency fund through Emigrant Direct which still gets a small contribution and earns a modest interest rate. I set up 2 savings accounts at HSBC which get contributed to bi-monthly for vacations and unexpected dog expenses. This past spring I finally opened a Roth IRA account where I contribute $100/month.
I appreciate the opportunity DK has given me to contribute and look forward to posting some of my experiences and ideas as I battle through the ups and downs of personal finances…..
by Jessica W on July 2, 2009
As a fellow DebtKid reader, I’m honored to be joining the DebtKid writing team for a while, and I look forward to joining you all in our journey towards debt freedom. My husband and I are a young family in our late 20s and we have two daughters, ages 10 and 3. We live in the suburbs of Seattle.
Started with $75,000 in debt
I guess I’d better start by coming clean about where I’m at on my debt journey. In the past three years my husband and I have been bailing out from under about $75,000 in debt, not counting our mortgage. Two cars, and some adoption loans (we’ve adopted our two beautiful daughters), college loans, etc. The college loans and adoption loans and car loans are paid off now and all that is remaining is some adoption travel on a credit card (one month in Ethiopia) and some medical bills (all current).
Progress on paying these off was slowed when I was laid off from my regular job in December and decided to pursue writing full time (a dream I thought would have to wait for retirement), but we’re getting back on track now and we feel like we’re in the “home-stretch.”
Current Debt
Here’s where we’re at:
- Mortgage remaining $163,000 (just refinanced into a fifteen year loan)
- Credit card 1 $13,700
- Credit card 2 $591
- Medical debts $987
Total non-mortgage debt: $15,278
Total debt with mortgage: $178,278
How we’re taming this dragon is by living on a serious budget. (I’ll post about the budget later), and following the Dave Ramsey “debt snowball” program. As adoptive parents, we’ve had the benefit of claiming the adoption tax credit, (usually over two years) and applying that towards our remaining adoption debt each time. It doesn’t quite offset the entire cost, but has gotten us pretty close. Ultimately the $15,000 doesn’t seem so scary since we’ll get back between $7-10k in February.
Our goal is to be out of non-mortgage debt before the end of this year so we can start funding college savings for our oldest daughter. Realistically, it looks like it will take us until about April to be out of debt, as we have some additional medical expenses coming up.
I’ll post more soon, and look forward to getting to know you all. If you’d like to know more about my story in the meantime, you can visit my “Laid off and loving it” story at www.pennywisefamily.blogspot.com. If you’d like to know more about our adoption journeys, those are also online at www.jessc098.blogspot.com. We have a daughter from the USA and one from Ethiopia.
Ciao for now,
Jessica
Once poker was kicked it was time to start paying my debts off… or so I thought.
A slow start
The massive debt accumulating mechanism in my life was gone, YEAH! However, my wife’s (and my) credit cards were still adding on more debt, but at a much slower pace. Most of this debt came from the expenses associated with a wedding, and our moving into a new apartment and the accompanying expenses of getting our life together started. I will say that very little of what we accumulated was frivolous, but it was still probably not debt from necessity. About a year ago we finally got our act together and realized that we needed to buckle down and really work on fixing our mess. We got our budgets together and have been steadily chipping away at it. We have also found it harder than anticipated, especially since our first child was born in November.
The best of times and the worst of times
Children are expensive, Mr. H makes most other children look cheap by comparison, although there were extenuating circumstances with him. The 20 week ultrasound revealed that Mr. H had a condition called gastroschisis. His intestines had not pulled into the stomach cavity but were hanging out of a hole in his abdomen, all this while he was still in the womb. The next 16 weeks till he was born was filled with weekly doctors visits for monitoring. The good part is that his condition is relatively common (yeah, shocked me to hear that too since I had never heard of it before), and that it was completely repairable. Mr. H was born on November 10th 2008 (the same day as the Marine Corps Birthday!) and immediately went into the NICU. We were told we could be looking at anywhere from two to seven months of him being in the NICU. They actually tucked his organs back into the stomach cavity and closed the hole two days after he was born, the long time span possible was in order to ensure his organs were able to function correctly and get nourishment for him because the trauma of the condition causes some children’s intestines to require time to… well, warm up is the best way to put it. We ended up being very lucky that Mr. H was only in the NICU for one month. The day we brought him home was wonderful.
So how does Mr. H relate to debt? Probably not how you think… Both my wife and Mr. H were double covered for insurance, so after we navigated the administrative gridlock that is the insurance industry, we did not have to pay anything for their care. This is very good because both my wife and Mr. H would have maxed out our out of pocket co-pays, which would have meant we would have had to pay $5k for each of them. How we did rack up more debt was just in the process of spending all our time traveling too and from the NICU, and the associated costs of not being home for meals and such. We bought a lot of food and gas that month, A LOT. I think we ate at home maybe twice that whole time. Our debt did not skyrocket, but it certainly did not get paid down at all during that time and we added about $1k to it. Then of course we also added more in the month or so leading up to Mr. H’s birth and afterward for the baby essentials. Diapers: we chose to go the cloth reusable route ($400 per set), which is a lot of up front cost but saves money in the end. The nursery furniture including the crib were handed down to us from a friend which saved a lot, but there were the bottles and the toys and the cloths and the list could go for ever. So, children are expensive… Mr. H has probably cost over $100k in his first seven months of life. Although he is the best thing to ever happen for me and I would pay any amount for him.
Details, details.
And after all that long explanation, here we are. Now we get to the nitty gritty. Rather than try to narrate our current debts I will just lay out or income and expenses. You are a financially literate group, you can probably pick up on it all pretty easily. I will say, that we have been very diligent in trying to pay down our debt despite all the unexpected expenses that arise which a child. We have also been very fortunate to have two very heft tax returns in the past two years. 2007 return gave us $9k and 2008 saw a $15k return. We closed on our first joint house together in October of 2008 (yes, in the month right before Mr. H was born) so qualified for that $7500 interest free government return/loan. Both of those returns went towards paying down cards. Between January of 2008 and now we have managed to kill $20k in debt… and that takes into account the periods of increased debt due to our lovely baby boy. So here is the balance sheet:
Income
- Salary – Me – $3050ish take home
- Salary – Wife- $2700ish take home
- Rent on my first house – $3000 per month
Debt
- Mortgage, rental house – $2600 per month ($409k balance)
- Mortgage, home – $2000 per month ($253k balance)
- HELOC, rental house – $38158.26
- Credit card 1, me – $10090.47
- Credit card 2, me – $4944.10
- Credit card 3, me – $0 (yeah!)
- Credit card, wife – $10kish
- Credit card, both – $5500; we had new windows installed on our house just last week. This was the cost of the windows. The house was in disparate need as the old ones were not safe for our son (would come crashing down at unexpected times. A couple were propped closed with boards) and leaked air like a sieve which caused us very high energy bills. These qualify for the recent energy efficient tax credit so we will end up getting $1500 back at the end of the year and savings in energy bills will be pronounced. This is no interest no payments for 12 months as well.
- Personal Loan, my parents – $56k, this was the loan they made to me to purchase my first home which is now a rental property. I pay them $400 a month to pay the interest that they pay (they used there HELOC to get me this) and to pay down the principle as well.
- Personal Loan, wife’s parents – $10k, they bought us new carpet for the whole house when we moved in, the previous carpet was just plain nasty and it looked like the foreclosed owners intentionally destroyed it. My wife’s parents said we did not have to pay them back, but we want to because it was too generous a gift, we pay $100 a month now and the amount will increase once credit cards are paid off.
The way forward
My wife and I are not by any means poor or scraping buy. If we were not aggressively paying off debt (about $1k per month above minimum payments) we would have a lot more flexibility and be able to indulge a lot more… even with this debt hanging over our heads. However, neither of us likes the debt hanging there and we both understand the economic concept of opportunity costs that we incur by holding the debt.
After this epic, two-part, introduction, I look forward to sharing my financial recovery with the debtkid.com community.
~RD
Greetings and salutations,
I am one of the recently added bloggers here at debtkid.com. This will be an unusually long post, in two parts, because I have a lot of story to tell. I can promise you brevity (or at least an attempt at it) in my future posts.
You all can call me RD. I am a 28 year old living in the Washington DC suburbs. I spent four years in the Marine Corps as an IT geek. I then went to George Mason University using my Montgomery GI bill and working through school. Now I work as a legislative analyst for a health care professional association in Alexandria Virginia.
Life is good
My debt problems started in college. I was actually in a very good financial situation when I started college. I collected my Montgomery GI bill, which is a monthly stipend ($1300ish), and I worked 3/4 to full time depending on the week/month. My job was waiting tables at a very popular restaurant that brought in a minimum of $60 a night and some times upwards of $120. Friday and Saturday nights were a guaranteed $160 or more. I also purchased a house while in college and rented out rooms to other students for a mild profit as well. Life was very good… for a while.
The road down
Here we meet online poker and my downfall. I started slow, experienced some successes and some losses. Eventually I started betting more and more and ended up having drastic swings up (turned $200 into $20k in two days one time, which I then lost a few days later) and a lot of more drastic swings down. Let me tell you, there is nothing that will stroke what was a rapidly developing gambling addiction than to win a whole lot of money and then to lose it. It will only reinforce the idea that you can win it all back and more. The emotional roller coaster associated with poker was INTENSE. The rush of a great night and good hands, the disparate need to get more money and get even when I was down. Eventually, I racked up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt from playing poker. I believe is was about $25k, but I could not tell you for sure because I was in total denial about how much I was losing. Over the coarse of the first year that this happened the housing bubble artificially inflated the price of my home by 25%. I refinanced some of the debt into the house AND then took out a home equity loan to pay off credit card debts. At the time I told myself that I would get a fresh start and never play poker again. When my house refinanced I literally was maxed out on my cards and was watching every single dollar in my bank account. I had no room to maneuver at all, thankfully I did not have any emergencies pop up during that time, my house of cards would have crumbled.
Unfortunately, I did not learn my lesson, and with my credit cards clear I eventually found my way back to poker. Oh, this was not constant. I knew I had a problem and would quit, then start again, and quit again. Constantly berating myself for my weakness and letting myself get caught up in it again each time.
The Price Tag for poor decisions
I did finally kick poker. In the end I was looking at about $20k in credit card debt (again…) and a maxed out home equity line of credit ($40k) where about 3/4 of the money on that was to pay off credit card gambling debt. The last $10k was also credit card debt, but that was my wife’s (then fiance) credit card we paid off.
by maeghen on June 30, 2009
My name is Maeghen, I am 27 and I live in CO. In the past few years I have amassed around 30k in debt. Due to a life changing family trauma and my need to feel the void that was left by it I became addicted to shopping. I am so grateful to DebtKid for giving me the chance to share my story.
In the beginning
This story begins when I was 20. I was working and going to school fulltime. I had been dating my wonderful boyfriend for 3 years (we are still together and it will be 10 years in September). I was living with my parents still to save money to pay for school. I couldn’t have asked for a better life.
But everything drastically changed on August 8th. We were informed at the hospital that my Mom had a stroke. She had just turned 50 the month before. Before the stroke my Mom ran her own accounting business and could do anything she put her mind to. The beginning of her recovery was in the hospital for about 2 months they then moved her home and we started taking care of her. She slowly regained her speech and motor skills. But she is still severely weakened on her right side and continues to still have health issues that stem from the stroke.
Due to the stress on my Dad he ended up getting shingles on his face around Thanksgiving that same year. At that point I was still working and going to school fulltime but I was also a fulltime caregiver to both my parents. Their health is still a major concern for me even today.
Putting my life on hold
While all this was going on I put my entire life on hold. I didn’t get to be 21 and go party with my friends. I had take care of my parents, still work and go to school (which I was failing almost all of my classes by this point). I never let anyone know what was going on with me or how I was feeling. This is one of the biggest mistakes I made. I lied to everyone and put on a great front that I was 100% in control of everything and I could handle anything that came my way.
When I was 23 I physically and mentally was falling apart. I was getting stomach pains, I was tired all the time, had acid reflux, and severe headaches. I also began suffering from depression and nightmares. I went to the doctor and found out that because of the stress I had given my self a stomach ulcer. I didn’t tell anyone about this for quite sometime because I didn’t want to worry anyone. I tried to find a therapist but didn’t ever really click with any of them. So I just kept on with what I was doing.
Spending sprees and plastic cards
Then one day in the mail I got a pre-approved credit card from Capital One with a $5000 dollar limit. And then a Chase card came next with a $2000 limit. More cards started to follow. I even started getting store cards too.
I decided to go on a spree and get my self a DVD player and some other things. I spent around $200 that trip which could have easily been paid off no problem. When I got home that night I spread out all of my purchases from that day on the floor and I had a feeling wash over me that I hadn’t felt in years. It was joy and calm. I went out the next day and spent $500 and felt the joy and calm again. This became an ongoing thing for the next few years. My friends loved shopping with me because I would spend so much. I would buy other people gifts as well and seeing how happy they would get would make me happy too. The bills then started showing up and the money began to run out fast.
Lets move to the present. I currently work 2 jobs. I work for Blockbuster and for an insurance agent as her licensed assistant. I am seeing a therapist to work on the depression, anxiety, day to day stuff and the shopping addiction. Like I said earlier I am still dating my boyfriend and he is amazing. He knows what’s going on with the debt and has been extremely supportive. We have discussed getting married a few times but I feel like I need to get my life and finances in order before we take that step.
Met with a bankruptcy attorney
I have a 5 year old Chihuahua (I can hear people groaning as they are reading this). I have to say I never expected to love this little dog so much but I do and I can’t imagine my life without him. I still help out my parents when they need me but I have learned to say no sometimes too. They are also aware of my debt and helped me a little bit with it. I have tried working with my creditors some are helpful while others I just end up hanging up on because they get so rude. I had a meeting last week with a bankruptcy attorney to just check out some of my options. I will fill you in on what is happening as that unfolds.
The buck stops here
I look at my life and I fully accept that I made this debt and no one else can be blamed except for me. I hurt the people that love and care about me the most and I also hurt myself. My debt is never far from my thoughts. And it’s something I deal with in someway everyday. I am hoping that by blogging about my debt I may help someone to realize that they are not alone and I hope that this experience will help to heal me too.
by debt kid on June 30, 2009
If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you know I’ve had my share of up’s and downs. And I imagine following along for the ride has been fun, eh?
Well, it’s about to get EIGHT times as fun.
I’m adding a whole new dimension to the blog here, by adding another 8 contributors to share their journey out of debt.
The 8 New Debt Bloggers at DebtKid
Note: The total debt amounts do not include mortgages, but do include any car loans or student loans. Each blogger will break out their debt in future posts.
Real Estate Kid – I’m 27 years old, I have a good career, own two apartments and drive a nice car. I also have approximately $30k in unsecured debt which is mainly due to spending more than I earn and taking advantage of 0% offers. It was just a few short months ago when I realized the balance transfer game caught up with me and making the minimum payments would soon be very tight. At the end of July my latest 0% offer will reset to a 15.99% rate. I’ve been working to pay off my debt since then with a goal of having zero debt by the end of 2010. My next goal after that is to save up to buy another property.
Debt: $37,938
April – I’m a 25 year old with many titles: mom, career woman, and fiancé. My eighteenth birthday was the same day my dysfunctional relationship with debt began. After six years of making a lot of bad financial decisions, I’ve decided to get my financial house in order so I can stop stressing and start living life to the fullest!
Debt: $93,177
RD – RD is a former Marine Corps IT geek and now works as a legislative analyst for a health care professional association in Washington DC. In college RD got hooked on online poker and lost tens of thousands of dollars that were paid for with credit cards and a home equity line of credit. Eventually kicking the gambling he set out to repair the damage done.
Debt: $96,000
Maeghen – I started shopping to fill the void that was left after a life changing family trauma. I have amassed around 30k in debt. Day by day I work on getting my debt under control but most importantly I work on myself too.
Debt: $30,000
Credit Cruncher – 26 year old single male overcomes the ups & downs and twists & turns of this thing called life! I will take you along on my rocky adventure to get myself debt free after livin’ the “good” life for far too long.
Debt: $61,268
Abby – Abigail Perry is (almost) 31 and lives in Seattle with her husband, Tim. They both have chronic health conditions that limit their ability to work. Despite relatively low income, they are slowly paying down debt.
Debt: $16,195
Debtor In The City - Sex and the city made life in the big apple seem so easy. Guess they didn’t have almost 60K in debt to pay down. I’m a twenty something year old dealing with life in the big city. Trying to balance having fun with being frugal is definitely a challenge. Hopefully, I’m up for the task.
Debt: $60,000
Jessica W – Jessica Ward is a full-time freelance writer and adoptive mom to two wonderful children. She writes to support her parenting/adopting habit.
Debt: $17,000
Total Debt: $320,063
Over the next week you’ll get to meet each new blogger. You’ll get to read their story, and get to know a little more about them. Going forward each blogger will contribute a few stories each week about their journey out of debt.
Please give them a warm welcome in the coming weeks! (don’t go easy on ‘em)
If you haven’t already, make sure and subscribe!
by debt kid on June 26, 2009
I saw an article on CNBC yesterday about “short sales”….it was a pretty generic article, but it was written in a very explanatory tone. While I did a short sale nearly two years ago, the term is only now becoming commonly known in mainstream America.
Foreclosures are soaring, bankruptcies are up….
I think I was ahead of the game. Ahead of the curve when it came to financial meltdowns.
Which is funny, because when money was flowing and home prices would “go up forever” (ala 2005), I was becoming broke faster than you can say “twitter”.
I think I just like to be different. When everyone is going left, I go right.
I’m glad I went through my short sale and bankruptcy when I did.
For all of my screw ups, I was pretty good at actually screwing up at the right time in my life. Sure, I wish I hadn’t ever lost all that money day trading, but hitting rock bottom sure as hell woke me up.
And now I’m stable. I’m still in debt. Still owe Mom over a hundred grand, but she refuses to charge me interest, so it’s a manageable debt to continue to repay over time.
I just sent off another 2.5K to the IRS this week. I’m getting closer to wrapping that debt up. I’m re-doing my 2007 return with the help of my accountant and once that is done, all I’ll have left to owe is around 6 or 7K.
But back to the recession.
Bankruptcy, foreclosure, short sale, debt….these are becoming more and more common words every day in the press. And even in everyday conversation.
I for one am glad the bubble popped. I feel for those who have lost their jobs or their life savings. That sucks.
But I needed a wake up call, and I think we as a nation are grinding our way through our own wake up call.
What do you think?
Will the recession change our spending and savings habits in the long term? Is the new focus on frugality and saving just a fad? Will it pass if/when the boom returns?
by debt kid on June 24, 2009
by debt kid on June 23, 2009
Update 6/26: I’ve gotten a dozen or so e-mails about being a new blogger here, so I’m full up at the moment. If there are any opportunities in the future I will announce them again here on the blog, so just subscribe to keep updated. Thanks! I’ll be introducing the new bloggers next week. ~ DK
Are you in debt? Want to share your journey out of debt?
Did you know that blogging about your debt journey is absolutely one of the best ways to keep yourself accountable, improve your financial skills, and get out of debt?
I’m looking to add some fresh blood to the blog here.
If you have a sizeable amount of debt, and are looking to make a little extra money sharing your journey…please e-mail me.
the 411
email: admin [at] debtkid.com
Let me know how:
- How much total debt you have (break it down)
- What finance blogs you read on a regular basis
- What if any writing/blogging experience you have
- How many posts you could commit to in the next 6 months
I’m looking to add 2-3 new bloggers here who can post a couple times a week.
Pay would be on a per post basis and would start in the mid teens.
Please feel free to share this post with anyone who might be interested.
Why I’m adding fresh blood
Well, for starters, I’d like to bring a writer on who can add more valuable content to my readers here on a more consistent basis. I’m consumed with other work right now, and with my life being more stable, I don’t feel as much desire to blog here.
In other words, we need some new blood with new drama and dilemmas and debt fighting tips from the trenches! That’s why you all subscribe, right?
by debt kid on June 18, 2009
I’m kind of obsessed with Real Estate lately.
It’s been two years now since I had to do a short sale on my first home purchase (a dumb one!), and I can’t help but look at the much more attractive prices in the Seattle area now.
Of course, I won’t be actually buying a house in Seattle any time soon. But, sigh, I love looking. It’s like my gossip magazine. You know it’s pointless, but it’s fun.
There are two sites I use when looking for homes in Seattle:
1. Redfin.com
I love Redfin’s interface. It’s slick, big, bold and beautiful. My only gripe would be that they still have some formatting issues to work out when using the site in Chrome (my browser of choice for speed). Also, they don’t cover the Portland market, so that’s a bit of a bummer. But for Seattle, heck yes I love you.
2. Trulia.com
Trulia is my catch all site. I can look up homes in Portland there as well as Seattle. It’s not as fancy as Redfin, but it’s a great workhouse. A lunch-pail, dependable type site for my real estate search wanderings.
I would love to someday be able to get into real estate investing a little bit. There is just something about owning a piece of a building and real dirt that appeals to the farmer in me.
Did I miss any other great real estate search sites? What do you use?
