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Old 03-12-2010, 11:16 AM
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woodie96 woodie96 is offline
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Hey americangolden,
Congrats on the upcoming marriage.
Doing a quick run of the numbers I see a couple of things that would help.

No.1 - Additional employment,,,either you or finacee..or both....at the current rate, just paying minimums, it will take you over 10 years to pay off the debt. If you snowball the debt, and can land an extra job bringing in an additional 200 a month to pay towards these bills, you could have them all paid off in about 3 years.

No.2 - House is killing you. Your home expenses including utilities make up about 48 percent of your income. If possible, sell home and rent for a while until you guys can get these down to something more manageable. I think the experts say that housing should be no more than 30 percent.

No.3 - The smoking, going out, and cable/phone bills need to be cut to a minimum. Those alone are costing you an additional 200 a month.

I know, some of these seem drastic, but if you decide to put your mind and energy to it and develop a plan, you can do it.

I would look on the internet for a snowball calculator for MS excel, and put the numbers in and play with them and then you can see just how much of a difference it can make, you may be surprised.

Hope this helps. I'm sure some of the guys/gals here will offer much more detailed advice.
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