Will we survive this credit card debt?

Yesterday we argued again, I have been trying to keep track of our spending by using the online bank account to track discretionary spending. Both my husband and I work for the same company and we each get paid once a month on the same day. This has made tracking expenses, especially for spending extra hard.

Well it seems my husband feels I am nagging him about his spending, in reality I was trying to figure out what the ATM withdrawals he made and check card purchases were for. All I want to do is set a budget before pay day so we can determine how much we can afford to put towards paying down debt. This is the issue we had when I handled the finances in the beginning of our marriage. I figured we would each get an allowance and we would never need to have this conversation again; we just need to be able to determine what we need for what.

After a 20 minute conversation that got got every one upset and totally made me feel defeated and like giving up, my husband looks at me and says that he likes me doing the finances because it makes him think about every dollar before he spends it. Really??? How do you hate it and like it at the same time. I am so tired right now and it has only been a couple of weeks. I feel like throwing in the towel but I know that is giving up on my family's security and future.

Making Extra Cash to pay off Credit Card Debt?

I have decided to try bringing in some extra money. Now I say trying because my current job is pretty demanding and the hours can vary. Along with travel time and kids it makes it a little hard to work a standard part time job.

Was talking to a friend who always works 1 or 2 part time jobs along with her main job. She mentioned that she got a second part time job for 10$ an hour. Nothing major just a few hours a week, but it provided her travel money.

I have been playing around with the ideal of writing for one of the internet sites that pay you for each article you write. The pay is only a few dollars per article but I figure 2-3 articles and I have $10 bucks to help pay down a bill. I am going to try it and see what happens.

Right now I am looking at Helium and Associated Content, think I will start with one of them. Any thoughts?

Weekend slip I mean trip...

About 3 months ago my husband announced that he wanted the family to travel out of town for the weekend. He was running a race in another city and thought we could have a family weekend and see the sites.

At first I was like OK but once I found out how much we are in debt I was no longer interested in spending the money for a family weekend. At the same time I wanted to support my husband and did not want ANOTHER money argument. So we went on the weekend we did get a great rate on the hotel but had to pay for parking and eat.

I cringe at the amount of money that was spent, not because it was a lot(it wasn't) but I feel in our situation any amount of money is too much. I have decided to swallow this one and be quite, since the trip was planed under 'old management'.

I must say that as a family we have been doing better with our spending in the past week. It has been harder for my husband but we have decided to do allowances, hoping this helps. Will keep you posted.

Another Helpful article

The New York Times has a really good article in its Your Money section. The article is called Hurry up and Credit My Money
by Ron Lieber. The article explains why banks can and do delay crediting our accounts for deposits but seem to instantly apply debits. The article is insightful and I especially like the comments.

$95,351.53 - Credit Card Debt Total

With our credit card debt being so large I decided to concentrate on that debt alone. To be truthful by the time we pay off all the credit card debt everything else besides the mortgage will be paid off also.

I have verified all the credit card totals and the total is not $100,000 but $95,351.53. To be truthful with the numbers being so large there does not seem to be any real difference between $100,000 and $95,351 but It could have been $5,000 in the other direction so I will take if for what it is and be happy.

Another great article

MSN Money has a great article called Get real: Downsize your money goals the article discusses how overly ambitions goals can discourage a person and keep them from trying to reach the goal. The article is by Liz Pullman Weston.

I think I am going to try setting mini goals and use them as steps leading up to the ultimate goal.

Moving Forward after Discovering Credit Card Debt

OK we are attempting to formulate a plan for going forward and tackling the huge amount of debt we are in. $100,000 is forefront in my mind everyday ALL day. I feel like a failure and am embarrassed to discuss or tell friends or family. I can only discuss with my husband for a few minutes at a time or he becomes defensive. I feel so lost and alone, really hope keeping this blog helps to keep me sane.

We have attempted to do a budget and I say attempted because it turns out my husbands records are basically non existent. His process was to pay the bills and then shred them, there are no records of anything that was not a set bill, no record of the credit card charges or debit card use or bank withdrawals. Of course there are records of the charges or withdrawals themselves but no records saying what the charges and withdrawals are for.

So we have been able to say what are major bills are such as mortgage, utilities, anything with a monthly bill. But we are unable to determine anything else. At this point I am very frustrated but I do think we will be able to start to dig our selves out of this $100,000 hole...

Should I just walk away? Article on dealing with debt

Here is an article by David Streitfeld it is in the New Your Times. The article is about walking away from debt and defaulting, not because you have to but because you can. I have not considered this option and don't think I want to. but I may change my mind once I get the full picture of the credit card debt damage. The article is called When Debtors Decide to Default. What do you think?

Helpful Article - Paying off Debt

Here is one of the best articles I have seen for paying off debt. I will be trying some of the methods and tracking how they work in the blog. The article is called A debt payoff plan that works by Liz Pulliam Weston. The article is nicely written(always learn something from her articles) and is very simple to understand.

How the Credit Card Debt Happaned

Lately my husband and I have been having problems. Typically he is very calm and even keel, but for the past few months he has been short tempered and a bit mean at times. After making the $100,000 debt discovery and talking it out with him, turns out he realized we were in trouble and did not know how to tell me or how to fix it.

Seems like dear husband was working on paying off the debt seriously (without telling me) for the past year. I thought we had been working on paying it off for years and were nearly done. A year ago our daycare bill went down substantially, freeing up a couple of hundred bucks which my husband started applying to paying off credit cards, and a couple of small ones did get paid off. One still has a $0 balance but the other is worse then ever with a $15,000 balance. Then the downturn in the economy hit us and we found our selves short $1000 a month. This is when the debt started growing instead of shrinking. We did adjust our spending, but not nearly enough. I assumed we were in a good spot financially and my husband did not want to tell me other wise. Seems he did not want to appear as a failure or change the family (or his) lifestyle.

I must accept my part in this HUGE mess. I should have insisted on seeing the bills, I was never kept from the bills but I knew that it would cause issues so I did not look. All I had to do was open the credit card statements and I would have see the problem before it became larger then a Boeing 747. Wish I had, I thought the worst that was going on were the debts being paid off slower then I would want. NEVER thought the debt was GROWING.

Here is how I think we got into this $100,000 debt mess, roughly. We moved to a new state a few years ago and got in about $30,000 debt then, from over spending, home repairs and moving expenses. Then we had a difficult pregnancy and after insurance there was a $20,000 bill which was placed on credit cards. The other 45 - 50,000 seems to have been racked up from the next two moves and living above our means. I just didn't realize it was above our means since I had buried my head in the sand about the debt.

Next...Moving Forward....

The $100,000 Credit Card Debt discovery

3 days ago my life changed or better yet 3 days ago I discovered my real reality. My family is $100,000 in debt. That's credit card debt ONLY. Not including student loans, car notes, mortgage or home improvement debt; just credit card debt.

My husband and I both work full time. We have been married 15 years and have two children. On Thursday I was home on furlough and decided to check the balances on the credit cards, just too see what kind of shape we are in. I knew we had some credit card debt but thought we had worked out a plan. My plan was to make a couple of calls and feel good about the progress we were making on paying down the debt. Imagine my shock to discover we had nearly DOUBLE the amount of debt I was expecting.

As I checked the credit card balances and it began to dawn on me how much trouble we were in I went from shock to anger to fear. When we first got married I handled all the finances, while I had nearly no credit my husband had awful credit. But after a couple of years we had cleared up his credit, built up mine and we brought our first home.

With the purchase of a home, my new job of shift work and my husbands new Accounting degree we decided it would be better if he handled the finances. Really he decided and I agreed in order to keep the peace. My way of paying bills and saving had caused SOOOO many arguments and so much bad blood. My husband felt that he was being treated as a child, a poor child at that. I figured he had an accounting degree was very good at what he did so a household budget should be no problem.

Just writing about it is upsetting, I think I will stop for now and try again later.