Celebrating! Less than 10k in total debt

[BlackDiamond]

You said earlier that you live paycheck to paycheck. That isn't anywhere close to true. You take home $2,650 (plus ebay) and you are saving $1,150 which is 43% of your take home pay. That's phenomenal. I fail to see any financial problem here at all. You are living very frugally and responsibly and saving a huge percentage of your income.

The problem I see is that I am not living like a middle aged woman. I am living like a poor college student. At my age, I should be able to buy a home or at least rent by myself. Due to my unusual medical circumstance I can't tolerate living in most apartments which I admit does complicate things.

I had to cancel my marriage plans because I couldn't afford to pay for a place for us to live. He owns a house (that for numerous reasons I can not live in with him) and that mortgage eats up his entire monthly paycheck...so I'd have to pay the rent alone for us). I can't afford to.

I feel like a loser. What kind of middle aged adult can't even afford a 1BR apartment? A loser, that's who.

It's scary too, because in the upcoming year or two, my roommate wants me to move out. I have no idea where I will even go.

[disneysteve]

The problem I see is that I am not living like a middle aged woman. I am living like a poor college student.

Please don't take offense at this but I think your problem is more one of self-esteem than one of finances. If you actually sit down and run the numbers, your situation isn't bad at all, as I alluded to above.

A good general rule of thumb budget is 50% needs/30% wants/20% savings.
For your income of $2,650, that would be $1,325/795/530.
You are currently at $1,494/5/1,151.
That is 56.4%/0.2%/43.4%.

And I'm not quite sure how Elizabeth Warren assigns debt payments. I put them in the need category but they might actually belong in the savings category. If that's true, your breakdown would be 45.5%/0.2%/54.3%. It isn't something you hear any of us say very often around here, but you are saving too much money. You are living like a poor college student for no good financial reason. And, by the way, if you are in your mid-30s, you are NOT middle-aged. Trust me, I'm 45.

You could definitely reallocate your spending to have your own place if that's what you really want.

I had to cancel my marriage plans because I couldn't afford to pay for a place for us to live. He owns a house (that for numerous reasons I can not live in with him) and that mortgage eats up his entire monthly paycheck...so I'd have to pay the rent alone for us). I can't afford to.

Not to get too deep into psychobabble here, but there is a whole lot more going on here than money. The guy owns a house. You were going to get married but for some reason couldn't live in his house. Okay. So the two of you were going to move into a new place. Why would you have had to pay for it? If he married you and you both moved, he wouldn't need the house anymore so he could sell it and then contribute to the rent for the new place. Sounds like there were some deeper issues there than finances.

[BlackDiamond]

Please don't take offense at this but I think your problem is more one of self-esteem than one of finances. If you actually sit down and run the numbers, your situation isn't bad at all, as I alluded to above.

A good general rule of thumb budget is 50% needs/30% wants/20% savings.
For your income of $2,650, that would be $1,325/795/530.
You are currently at $1,494/5/1,151.
That is 56.4%/0.2%/43.4%.

And I'm not quite sure how Elizabeth Warren assigns debt payments. I put them in the need category but they might actually belong in the savings category. If that's true, your breakdown would be 45.5%/0.2%/54.3%. It isn't something you hear any of us say very often around here, but you are saving too much money. You are living like a poor college student for no good financial reason. And, by the way, if you are in your mid-30s, you are NOT middle-aged. Trust me, I'm 45.

You could definitely reallocate your spending to have your own place if that's what you really want.


Not to get too deep into psychobabble here, but there is a whole lot more going on here than money. The guy owns a house. You were going to get married but for some reason couldn't live in his house. Okay. So the two of you were going to move into a new place. Why would you have had to pay for it? If he married you and you both moved, he wouldn't need the house anymore so he could sell it and then contribute to the rent for the new place. Sounds like there were some deeper issues there than finances.

He owns the house with 2 family members. It's 100K in the tank.
It's 3 hours away from my job (before traffic) and even if it was closer I can not live with his brothers. They make me uncomfortable and they are noisy. They don't want to sell, they make less money than he does, and even if they did want to sell now, they were all recently sued regarding something w/ the house (not even sure what the suit is about but because it's attached to the house, they can't even short sale the thing for at least 3-4 years... the court date is in 3 years). He has to keep paying for the house and it takes up his entire salary. He would not be able to contribute anything to our life together for at least 3-4 years and during that time, I wouldnt be able to save much because I'd need to pay all our bills alone.

They've tried to rent the house but no one wants it. It's in the middle of nowhere. I've actually suggested that they just let the house be foreclosed and take the hit. My fiance is willing to do so, because I think he realizes that they got in over their heads and made a bad, bad investment. But his brothers refuse to and so he is stuck.

If I were to get my own place, my rent costs would at least double and my utility costs would go way up as well.

I really wish I didn't have to live within commute distance to Boston, but there just aren't full time jobs near my salary anywhere else. I've looked.

It's just a bad situation.