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Here are some of the things I've done to keep myself from getting into debt on a teacher's salary, and then to help me accumulate some "extra" cash once my wife's job started paying more than mine did. :club: Some of these may be things that you've already thought of, but just some ideas to keep in mind.(1) Many bills are somewhat seasonal: for instance, my electric/gas bill is significantly higher in the winter when it comes to heating the house than in the summer when it comes to cooling the house. When you can, use the discrepancy to work on paying down your credit card. For me, it's nearly a $200/month difference between the two seasons. Not only does this help to keep your credit card balance moving in the right direction, but it also helps you maintain the sense that a lot of bills aren't truly "monthly".(2) Speaking of heating and cooling, you can save a little bit extra per month by keeping the temperatures slightly lower than you're used to during the winter and slightly higher than you're used to during the summer.(3) When it comes to grocery shopping, a few things:

  • Enroll yourself in one of those free membership clubs that so many of them have these days. These clubs are willing to do it for just your name and address. The savings are enough that you'll notice a few hundred extra dollars per year if used well. In my area, we have a Safeway that has one of those club offers that also offers you 10 cents per gallon off at the pump. This deal is worth it.
  • If you get the Sunday paper anyway, become a coupon-clipping household. However, be careful with this. The purpose of clipping the coupons is not to find new products to try, but rather to save money on the products that you already buy.
  • Learn the difference between generic products and name-brand products. Usually generic products are cheaper. On some things, you have a major sacrifice on quality, taste, longevity, or the like. On others, you don't. At the bare minimum, you should at least go with generic products for things that have a small noticeable difference. This includes (if applicable) prescription drugs, too, where your health insurance will more than likely reduce the cost to $10 or less (on birth control pills alone, for instance, this'll save you at least $15 per month).

(4) On automobiles:

  • Make sure you get your oil changed, but you don't even need to go every 3,000 miles or whatever they recommend these days. Unless your car is really aging, you can go as infrequently as every 7,500 miles or so and still be OK.
  • Consolidate all your long-distance driving trips. If you need to go 20 miles away to pick up something, wait until you have some other things to pick up in that same area, or see if you can find it more closely.
  • Consider walking or taking the bus (or other available modes of public transportation, I don't know what Ohio has) to places that are reasonably close and/or convenient. (Don't do this if this would in anyway jeopardize your safety.)

(5) Consider buying things that last for a reasonably long time in quantity, especially if you know that they're things you're regularly going to use. I know, I know... who actually needs 24 rolls of toilet paper? But you know you're going to use it anyway, and in most cases, you usually find a cost savings for buying more at one time. (Side note: In my experience, toilet paper is one of those items where you can ignore the note on going generic. You're working your *** off, it's worth it to give it a little multi-ply loving.)(6) When you need new clothes or the like, consider the clearance racks. Many times, you'll find things that are still reasonably fashionable for significant savings. Alternatively, avoid the "mall" like the plague for these items.(7) If you haven't already, consult with your wife. She needs to be not only a part of the solution, but she needs to be on board with any solutions that you come up with. There are some sacrifices that simply aren't going to be worth it to her, but let her in on just how severe the situation is.(8) Check with neighbors, co-workers, or friends that you trust that have children of similar age to you. Sometimes a stay-at-home parent is willing to accept your kids in their home for cheaper than $900/month. Not only does that put your child in the hands of someone you know and trust, but it could result in substantial savings.Edit: Changed the last word of my post to what I meant rather than what I said.

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Thanks for the advice....I know that I just need to crack down...go to absolute minimum requirements....but here is some more detail...I am married with two kids....drop ~$900/month on childcare....
Your wife is working, too? How much is her income?
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Not sure if this is an option, and i guess it's kind of humiliating, but ask your parents for help? You don't even need to ask them for money, you can ask them for a loan and even offer to pay interest on it, just lower interest than what credit cards charge. Right now, some of your focus should be on changing your consumption habits to pay off your debts, but I think you need to be more focused on changing your debt so that's the rate is lower. Have you exhausted all refinancing options? Is your wife's credit better than yours? Can she get a loan? Can you get a home equity line? second mortgage? Although the availability of cheap credit is dissipating, you should still be able to do better than the 20% your credit card company is charging you.

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About $1800.
If your wife is only making $1800 per month and you are paying $900 per month is child care you for sure need to an analysis of whether it makes sense for her to work in that job. If you are in the financial troubles that you say you are everything should be considered and having her work part time when you are home and able to take care of the kids and removing that $900 per month child care may be something you need to seriously look at.
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I have to be honest; I don't track all this crap. Before you run any spreadsheets which tally up your monthly toothpick cost, I think it's best to just look at the big hitters. I'm guessing that we have:

  • Mortgage, basically $1200 or so in interest
  • House maintenance $300
  • Utility bills $300
  • Car costs $700
  • Credit card interest ($500 ?)
  • Child care $900
  • Food $700

So I'm just guessing $4,400 there, which is about all of your take home pay.Some of you might argue with the home costs, but I don't think they're out of line. I believe houses are not great investments, because of all these monthly costs that are roughly proportional to our square footage. (Renting lots of square feet is also expensive, so it's more a question of cost of housing than rent vs. buy.)I'd concentrate on this stuff first, trying to figure out what I can reduce out of this. Can we drop a car payment? Pay for less house?

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FYP. But thanks for playing.
Yes, clearly, I waited for you to post, then rattled off as much as I could in sixteen minutes to mimic your post.The major difference between our two posts is the tone. While I agree that desperate times call for desperate measures, when you have a family, you have to couch these measures in terms of things that will keep your family on board. The last thing that you want to come out of this is divorce because you acted like a jerk.There are some suggestions that don't overlap. And in this kind of thread, there is going to be some overlap. So honestly, knock it off and try acting the 23 years old that you claim to be.
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If your wife is only making $1800 per month and you are paying $900 per month is child care you for sure need to an analysis of whether it makes sense for her to work in that job. If you are in the financial troubles that you say you are everything should be considered and having her work part time when you are home and able to take care of the kids and removing that $900 per month child care may be something you need to seriously look at.
Have her stay home and take in a couple kids and reverse that figure immensely.
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Any serious advice is appreciated.....ThanksJayray
Hey, on another note, man ... it's just money. Be sure to forget about this **** for a while every day. Have sex with your wife, play with your kids and laugh a little. People all over the world would look at you and say to themselves that they'd chop off a foot for your problems. (and no, I don't want to start that thread again.) You can't take it with you. I KNOW this is something you obsess over 24/7, but DO enjoy life a little along the way while you solve this problem, OK? Speaking for the FCP community, we support your honesty and your good intentions. Good luck.
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If your wife stays home that saves the day care cost and then maybe you can rid yourself of a car?edit: Also you can buy a hair trimmer and a pair of hair scissors and stop paying for kid haircuts. I know it sounds extreme, but it's a little thing you can do. Maybe that saves enough that your wife doesn't have to give up her hairdresser completely. Also, if she colors have her address the cost issue with the hairdresser and see if they can come up with a lower maintenance coloring scheme so she still looks gorgeous but isn't paying as much to do so.

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Between you and your wife you make around $90k per year?It's kind of hard for me to believe that you can't manage to pay all your bills and still be paying down some of your debt. Have you actually tried creating a very simple spreadsheet that shows your weekly income vs expenses? Now that I'm back at school I've broken down all my savings into how much 'salary' I give myself per month. Then I subtract all of my monthly bills and see what I have left. That gets broken down into weekly expenditures for food, gas, fun, etc. For me whatever extra I have at the end of each week and month gets split between extra entertainment and going back to savings. For you I assume it would probably make sense to throw 75% or so at your debt and start saving some as well...plus one of your regular weekly expenditures would be paying down that debt.Part of the benefit of this system is to try and stay within the given boundaries, but it's also nice to see exactly where you tend to go over budget. For example, if you see that you're spending much more than you can afford (according to your budget plan) on food, that's a sign that you need to figure out a way to cut costs there. You get the idea. This all sounds simple, but obviously you haven't tried it yet, so it's worth a shot. And it does take some willpower to stick to it.

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If your wife stays home that saves the day care cost and then maybe you can rid yourself of a car?edit: Also you can buy a hair trimmer and a pair of hair scissors and stop paying for kid haircuts. I know it sounds extreme, but it's a little thing you can do. Maybe that saves enough that your wife doesn't have to give up her hairdresser completely. Also, if she colors have her address the cost issue with the hairdresser and see if they can come up with a lower maintenance coloring scheme so she still looks gorgeous but isn't paying as much to do so.
I once heard on the radio that shaving your head could save you up to $800 a year. Just sayin...
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Between you and your wife you make around $90k per year?It's kind of hard for me to believe that you can't manage to pay all your bills and still be paying down some of your debt. Have you actually tried creating a very simple spreadsheet that shows your weekly income vs expenses? Now that I'm back at school I've broken down all my savings into how much 'salary' I give myself per month. Then I subtract all of my monthly bills and see what I have left. That gets broken down into weekly expenditures for food, gas, fun, etc. For me whatever extra I have at the end of each week and month gets split between extra entertainment and going back to savings. For you I assume it would probably make sense to throw 75% or so at your debt and start saving some as well...plus one of your regular weekly expenditures would be paying down that debt.Part of the benefit of this system is to try and stay within the given boundaries, but it's also nice to see exactly where you tend to go over budget. For example, if you see that you're spending much more than you can afford (according to your budget plan) on food, that's a sign that you need to figure out a way to cut costs there. You get the idea. This all sounds simple, but obviously you haven't tried it yet, so it's worth a shot. And it does take some willpower to stick to it.
Dude, It may be an unreasonable request given my current financial situation, but give me some credit. I am well aware that I make really good money...and well aware that I SHOULD be financially secure making that much....but I have made some poor decisions to get myself in a bad spot. I was just looking for some advice on how others would approach it. The spreadsheet showing income/expenses has been the only thing that has kept me from slipping further into the abyss.....anyway....that's all.Jayray
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heres a tip that can help with the electric bill. ask your provider if they have a balanced billing plan. they take your records over the last year and average them out. you pay a flat rate that is derived from the 12 month average. in december or january they review the past year and make either an increase or decrease in your bill.when i lived in houston it saved me $80 a month after i did the balanced billing.in the summer it was close to $125.

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I once heard on the radio that shaving your head could save you up to $800 a year. Just sayin...
I keep my boys buzzed. It's easy for them to take care of and it gauls me to pay 15 bucks for a kid haircut which is what they cost now in most places.
i wish i made 70k a year...
Go to engineering school.
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Jay,Have you sought out any reputable financial consultants that specifically handle debt consolidation, creating a sound/realistic budget to not only pay down your debt but put money towards savings, and making such a plan feasible?

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Jay,Have you sought out any reputable financial consultants that specifically handle debt consolidation, creating a sound/realistic budget to not only pay down your debt but put money towards savings, and making such a plan feasible?
We did the "credit counseling" thing a while back, and to be honest, that is what put us where we are today....the company ended up keeping our first monthly payment as a "voluntary fee" (since they are nonprofit, this is considered voluntary)...and we went as far as 60 past due on some stuff....crushed our credit score...leading to a poor mortgage interest rate....etc..etc....leading to damn near impossibility of any type of consolidation loan.....(BTW- we did get our first month's payment back after a BBB intervention, as I had documentation from them stating that I did not wish to make the "voluntary contribution")...we are slowly getting our score back up..but it takes some time. I would love to talk with a financial consultant, but if you Google, credit counseling, or credit problems...you get so much BS it is hard to find anything decent. If you have a recommendation, I would love to hear it though...thanks for taking the time to post.Jayray
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We did the "credit counseling" thing a while back, and to be honest, that is what put us where we are today....the company ended up keeping our first monthly payment as a "voluntary fee" (since they are nonprofit, this is considered voluntary)...and we went as far as 60 past due on some stuff....crushed our credit score...leading to a poor mortgage interest rate....etc..etc....leading to damn near impossibility of any type of consolidation loan.....(BTW- we did get our first month's payment back after a BBB intervention, as I had documentation from them stating that I did not wish to make the "voluntary contribution")...we are slowly getting our score back up..but it takes some time. I would love to talk with a financial consultant, but if you Google, credit counseling, or credit problems...you get so much BS it is hard to find anything decent. If you have a recommendation, I would love to hear it though...thanks for taking the time to post.Jayray
Sounds to me like you're in some kind of ARM (maybe a 5/1?) with your mortgage.A couple of other thoughts occur to me here, then:
  • What's your interest rate at? Is it possible to perhaps lock in a fixed rate? It might not be a good idea to let the interest rate keep escalating on you if this is the case.
  • Are there other kinds of loans that are out there that you have? I'm thinking about student loans, and while I'm not immediately sure what your options are with these, I know a guy who rolled his into his mortgage payment somehow (saved him about $50/month).

By the way, I found this link about a consumer debt agency by adding "Ohio" into the Google search mix. I don't know if it applies to you, but if it does, it might help: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006..._counselor.htmlDid the BBB have someone that they recommended? I know you've been burned by the credit counseling route before, but it might be something to reconsider.

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Did the BBB have someone that they recommended? I know you've been burned by the credit counseling route before, but it might be something to reconsider.
Talk to your minister. You'd be surprised at the access they have to problem solving tools.
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If your wife is working full time and her take home is only $1,800 then it's almost not worth it with you having to pay $900 in child support. I don't have any kids but $900 for child support sounds really expensive.If your wife stayed at home and took care of the kids and then even did some work from home type things like data entry from home or someting I'm sure she would be making at least $900+.If your kids are going to be going to child care your wife needs to bring in more money. Where are her parents or your parents? Can they help with watching the kids? Do you have any siblings that have kids that can watch your kids?$900 (in addition whatever you're paying now) per month would really help out at paying off those credit cards.

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