My Debt Blog

I’m actually glad it’s a Monday for a change. Friday is payday and we have no money until then. Right now I’m the sole breadwinner between my wife and me. The student teaching she did for no money was rough and we had to get through that. I never really liked or understood why they cannot pay student teachers since they’re still doing a job. Now she’s done with that and graduated.

We’re half way through the month and I am a little concerned that nothing has happened yet. She puts in applications into places and then has to go get tests done, background check, and a lot of run around. Why wasn’t she informed about the process before now I have no idea? At the same time, no job and no income either.

I’m frustrated about how we’re going about spending money now. There’s only so much money for the month, and the normal household expenses usually stay consistent. Last month we spent way more than what came in, along with the car insurance bill. Now is the time to really assess what we’re spending money on. When we were in the grocery store the other day, I was adding in my head what we were getting. My wife doesn’t always think about the cost of things, so when I reminded her we only have so much in the account, she got upset. I’m doing my best here trying to keep things together, but at times I feel like she could be doing more.

There have been plenty of comments in the past that we’re never going to get anywhere unless we’re on the same page. I agree with that, which is why I’ve stopped trying to pay off debt for now. There is no point in my efforts unless my wife also believes in the cause. I just want to focus on the necessary expenses right now. When the bills come in I track their balances and payments due. It will take a long time to clear the balances when we only pay the minimum required monthly payment. This is where those DMP and credit counseling programs catch her attention. I don’t like resorting to something like that, but the idea of those is you pay one monthly payment and they distribute it between the creditors involved. There’s a specific chart and a roadmap of how long it will take to be debt free. It would be great to get rid of credit cards, but I don’t think we need a program to do this.

I also brought up the sour subject of student loan debt. These loans can’t go anywhere quickly when we are still working on our credit card debt. Getting rid of credit card debt is more important than paying off student loans. It just takes time and sacrifice to dedicate the income towards the cause. I only have so much control over money, and that’s not saying much.

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