Money and the Future

[Ruby Rose]

So reading the mortgage payoff thread has me depressed.

 

What are you supposed to do when your spouse makes enough to pay the bills, but not much else? He has a small amount in a 401k, we have minimal savings aka tax refund that has a major leak with all the things (medical) that need to be paid. I don't work outside the home, but I do all I can to stretch every dollar. I still have too much student loan debt and no retirement and after a year of unemployment from my husband last year (couldn't find work and went to school) we have about $10k in cc debt. We both drive older and paid off cars. I drive as little as possible to save on gas. We are just keeping our heads above water. How do we save, payoff, and plan for the future?

[Scarlett]

If you want to get radical you can go over to Dave Ramsey site http://www.livinglikenooneelse.com/, post your budget and income and let them make suggestions. Warning....they are hard line. But it gives you good ideas.

 

If you are truly already doing the best you can then have peace with that. Not everyone can pull off the perfect financial plan from beginning to end. Except for having our fixer house paid for dh and I are no where near where someone our age should be with savings and retirement. We are just doing the best we can though.

[FaithManor]

So reading the mortgage payoff thread has me depressed.

 

What are you supposed to do when your spouse makes enough to pay the bills, but not much else? He has a small amount in a 401k, we have minimal savings aka tax refund that has a major leak with all the things (medical) that need to be paid. I don't work outside the home, but I do all I can to stretch every dollar. I still have too much student loan debt and no retirement and after a year of unemployment from my husband last year (couldn't find work and went to school) we have about $10k in cc debt. We both drive older and paid off cars. I drive as little as possible to save on gas. We are just keeping our heads above water. How do we save, payoff, and plan for the future?

 

 

:grouphug: :grouphug:

 

Well, this economy stinks. People used to heavily rely on pay increases in order to get ahead...keep the budget the same despite the pay increase, use the additional pay to go towards things like CC debt and savings. Wages have been stagnant for so long, most can no longer look to this as a solution.

 

I don't know your whole situation so I'm just going to throw some random thoughts out there and you can cherry pick what might work and what might not.

 

When DH was injured last Christmas season, we ended up owing a few thousand, not a huge amount, but still....on his medical bills. Deductibles, stuff the insurance refused to pay and it would have cost more to hire attorneys to fight it than just pay it, etc. We could have withdrawn savings money, but with two kids in high school both already looking at colleges, another one in the wings, and dd in college whom we were still helping, I opted to NOT drain the emergency fund. That meant increasing income. So, I looked for work that would be flexible enough to still homeschool. I took a four Saturdays per month job at a quilt store and a 20 hr. per week chemistry teacher/school guidance counselor position at a private school. The school job was a nightmare, but I survived the semester of income I needed to pay off the medical bills, and then went down to three Saturdays per month at the quilt store plus special sale times. I really enjoy the quilt store job. With such heavily reduced hours, I don't make much, but I what I do bring in pays for incidentals for dd's wedding.

 

So, I would suggest looking for anything like that which would allow you to homeschool. Tutor a couple of kids - in most areas $15.00 - 20.00 an hour and especially if you can do high school subjects. Take in one child to babysit - around here that is $150.00 - 200.00 per week. Interview, interview, interview, and see if you can find a low maintenance, happy go lucky, not too loud child that will happily play or sit on your lap while you teach your own children. You could also find out if the hospital or nursing home needs any part-time housekeeping help. Often these can be late afternoon, or evening jobs. 20 hrs. a week at minimum wage - $7.30 an hour could net you $500.00 a month depending on what your withholding is set at. That's $6000.00 of the 10 grand in CC bills. Added to your monthly minimum payment, you may be able to knock it out in 12 or 13 months. If you keep the job another year, you'd have that $6,000.00 plus whatever had been the cc payment to put in savings. That would create a nice cushion.

 

While not ideal by any stretch, if your dh is in good health, he might find a part time job he could do in addition to his full time one if the two don't overlap. Yah, not great. BLECH! But, seasons in life. If it were only for a year in order to help you get your heads above water, it might be worth the sacrifice.

 

Whatever you do to assist income wise, look for something close by so you don't have big commuting costs, and something that can be done when dh is home with the kids, and doesn't require an investment in expensive clothing. If you work through a mealtime, always, always, always pack your food because buying out eats heavily into the net pay.

 

Other than that, if you have significant equity in your house and you live somewhere that has a reasonably healthy real estate market, you could consider selling and then finding a small rental for a couple of years while you save. It's not a happy thing to do at the start. But, I've known two couples that did this and do not regret the decision. Their rental was $250.00 a month less than their house payment, and that made all the difference in their quality of life until they got their heads above water.

 

Or, if the PS in your neighborhood aren't atrocious, you could consider one year of full time work even if it is only minimum wage, and enroll the kids in school with the understanding you'll bring them home again as soon as you can. One year would knock out the CC debt plus give you and emergency fund.

 

Wishing you all the best,

Faith

[Mnemosyne]

In the end, you really have two options:

 

1. Increase income.

2. Decrease expenses.

 

Sadly, there is no way around that. ;)

 

Sounds like you are doing alright, though, especially since it sounds like you're watching your spending and make the money you have last as long as it can. Every penny you can save will help out.

 

Is there a way you can increase income? Maybe freelance from home? Tutor? Coupon? If you are really desperate but don't have much in the way of marketable skills online, you can always do something like Amazon Mechanical Turk and do little jobs during breaks. It's not much, but it adds up.

 

I personally work on my own business before my son wakes up and after he goes to sleep. I've been sleep deprived, but it's helping me reach my goals and once we have a little more income coming in, I'll be able to change the schedule around a bit. It sucks, but it's necessary if I want to live the lifestyle I want (and keep up my almost unsustainable book buying habit ;) ).

[Momma2Many66]

I was just like you 5 years ago. We lived paycheck to paycheck and we were always, always treading water to stay afloat. My husband was the only wage earner and we had 5 children at home living on under 35 thousand a year. We weren't living high on the hog and we had no debt except for our mortgage, but we still only "just got by" every month. I deluded myself with the fact that we would be okay, we could save for retirement "later", emergency funds were for people that made lots of money, and until the kids were grown we would always be living week to week, so that I could stay home and homeschool our children. We muddled along okay, we grew lots of our own foods, lived pretty simply and shopped the GoodWill and yard sales for clothing and what not's and just squeaked by every month, but we had no debt so we would be fine. Right ?......Wrong !

 

Then the world dropped out for us, my 19 year old daughter was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The stress and fear for her health were overwhelming on us all. She needed several surgeries and months of recovery. My husband had to take off work to watch our four little ones ages 2, 4, 6 and 8 ( without pay) so I could stay with her in the hospital and during her surgeries and treatments. She had 2 or 3 doctor appointments a week for months at at time and he had to take days off for those times because the appointments would last for hours and sometimes were many miles away at treatment centers.

 

We started living on credit cards to make ends meet. At the same time, the murphy's started hitting. Our underground water pipe to the barn had been leaking for months without us knowing and we recieved a water bill for over 3 thousand dollars. Then my husband was in a car accident and thankfully not injured, but we had to replace the car and that put us back another 2,500 for reliable transportation (beater car).

 

By the end of that year, we were 20 thousand in debt on credit cards and trying to dig out with a very tiny shovel.

 

My stress level was over the roof !

 

We had a difficult time paying on our farm and we were worried we would loose it to foreclosure.

 

I felt like Scarlett O'Hara when I stood outside in our field and swore that I would get us out of this mess and never let financial difficulties destroy us again.

 

Then I just got plain mad and went to work on figuring out how to dig us out of this mess.

 

That is when we found Dave Ramsey and started following the baby steps to get us back on track. I found the book Total Money MakeOver at the library and read it cover to cover along with my husband.

 

That is when our world started coming together again.

 

The anger kept us going, we made a strict budget and we got rid of cable tv, only bought what was absolutely necessary, lived on lots of beans and rice, and sold on ebay and Craigs List anything that wasn't nailed down.

 

I helped watch some kids to make extra money, my husband picked up a side job doing security work on the weekends for a furniture store. All the money went to paying down debt and getting us back on track.

 

Today, 5 years later my daughter is a healthy happy married 25 year old mother of a 2 year old baby. We thank God for that blessing every day !

 

The last 5 years financially were very hard on us. We lived bare bones with no frills and we worked and made money doing anything we could find to throw extra at debt. But now, I just paid off our mortgage on our 11 acre farm last month, I have sinking funds in place, a 6 month emergency fund, 15 % of our income going to a retirement plan and we can breathe well again.

 

The stress level is gone and the peace of mind that replaced it is priceless.

 

The trama that we went through made us all so much stronger and so much more grateful for what we do have. We grew as a family as we went through the hardships and it made is all work together as a team. We are closer then ever now. I wouldn't trade those experiences for the world !

 

Get angry and get a take no prisoners attitude on your financial difficulties, it will help to keep you motivated for getting rid of debt and moving towards a life of living debt free and with financial peace.

[dbmamaz]

plan is to put the younger one back in school no later than high school, and go back to work . . . most of what i earn will go towards retirement. but . . .we're in our late 40s and youngest is 9. so we still worry.

[Ruby Rose]

I appreciate the helpful feedback.

 

We'll get there! Somehow we always make it work.