Getting Tired
Normally I’m a very patient person and don’t mind waiting for good things to happen. We have some credit card debt on each of us which has gone way down this year, but the momentum was short lived. While I am currently in a payment plan on my student loans, my wife has her loans in a grace or forbearance. At least we are not paying off a car on top of it all. The mortgage is still there and it would be great to pay it down, but everything has to happen in a particular order.
I’ve made several snowball type of spreadsheets to determine what I would need to pay on each card to get rid of it by a certain time. Sadly this payment process is over a 2 year span and it’s frustrating that it will take that long to get rid of credit cards. We’re not using them but it doesn’t feel like we’re paying them down and off quickly enough because each has a balance in the 4 figure range. I considered some of those 0% transfer cards but the savings on the interest is very minimal to surf balances all the time. When a challenging month comes up where there are increased expenses, we can’t make the payment on the spreadsheet. This just makes the plan stretch out longer and that just makes the debt even more depressing.
We have got to get these credit cards gone in order to tackle the crap out of the student loans. My wife is getting these statements from her student loans and it shows how much was borrowed, how much interest will be paid over the payment time frame, and the grand total of the two. In most cases the number is more than double what was originally borrowed. She has a 283 month payment plan which is 23 years and 7 months if we just keep paying what they ask for every month. My loans are on a 120 month or 10 year plan, which is also a long time to pay off a loan. It seems to me the larger the loan the longer you can pay on it to keep making them more money. When the credit cards are paid off, I plan to double the payments on all the loans to at least cut the time down to less than half, and pile up on the weaker smaller balances. The frustration right now is the credit cards are not paid and we’re not even making payments to her loans. The interest on her loans is only going up every month we have to drag this out, and I don’t make enough money to make payments on them. All of our debt is too much for me to completely service on my income alone.
On a positive note my house value is starting to finally come back up from the bottom. It is almost to a break even point where it is worth what I owe. In a few more months it may even start to be worth more than what I owe and my equity in it can actually increase. The market is still soft but there are houses in the community that are starting to sell. If my wife gets a job that requires us to relocate, I think we might be able to sell for enough to clear what we owe on it. Paying the realtors and other fees is another story.
Jim I understand your frustration.First, I knew I owe so much money but I didnt know it was going to take me 2 yrs to get rid of it.First when I punched numbers in snowball calculator, I felt so blueeee.Nowdays, I am more used to the time frame I have, I see the light. It is a tiny light but keeps me going.We are young, imagine what if we were 40+ and have almost same amount of debt?(no wonder people go insane)Once your wife has income (40K-50K even more), you will feel better because she will be able to take care of her expenses such as student loan,her daily expenses, fun items. Why dont you post your spreadsheet online so we can see?It emotionally helped me alot.Also sharing your budget with us?I know that’s hard to do because people will have all kind of comments about how you spend money but at the same time you will learn some valuable lessons.
I feel for you… Its a rough spot to be in, and very frustrating at times. Hang in there, though. Before you know it, the time will have passed, and you will see the difference…
Jim~did you notice thebrightsideofdebt is no longer blogging. Her blog has been deleted. I wonder what happened?:(
I’m not going to speculate as to why people shut down their blogs. Lately though I have noticed quite a few blogs drop off. They might not choose to blog anymore or someone they know found their blog and used it to exploit or harass them. The only way to get around that is to nuke the blog and let the Google cache clear out over the next few months. This is why I try to keep my blog focused on the debt and less about my income and monthly budget. I don’t use my name or post any pictures. The only thing that concerns me about her blog going down was that she had health problems just before the blog went down. We may never know what actually happened so hopefully all is well.
I hope she is OK. Do you think someone can figure out who you are based on your income and budget?
It’s hard. It sucks. I got down to just over 4000 on my credit card and blew it back up to over eight. It still isn’t back down to 4000. BUT, llook at your networth iq. Keep that up to date and with your contributions to retirement and paying off debt (no matter how slowly it *feels*) you will continue to see your networth rise. Every small step brings you closer to your goal. Just keep moving forwards. I’m really proud of the progress you have already made!
p/s not to mention that you will continue paying on your mortgage which will help your networth rise.
I really wouldn’t recommend selling the house for a couple of years. Give yourselves a break and the chance to get into a good routine when the school year starts in September.
I know exactly how you feel. Imagine having $75,000 in credit card debt. On some days, I feel good about paying an extra $100 on a credit card. At the same time, I feel like it barely makes a dent. Interest is what kills everything.
My networth has gone down a lot this month. I’ll have the official numbers soon.
Chris, the credit card debt is nothing compared to the student loans. Like I said though the credit cards have to go in order to tackle those loans though. Even if we were to give up and let them fall by the wayside, the student loans must be paid back. Even $100 extra a month is $1200 extra per year.
Another website that went down is we’re in debt. I wonder where they went.
Yeah I’m getting depressed too after being a little excited at accomplishing short-term goals. The long term ones are so draining to think about. My only hope of being able to pay everything off sooner than scheduled is increasing my income. As soon as your wife starts working full-time it should be easier I imagine. Good luck and try to stay positive!