How should I tackle this?

**Jluke** · 12-15-2017, 07:33 AM

Hi, thanks for posting your information.

The below will follow Dave Ramsey's advice very closely on paying off debt.

Do you have an emergency fund of at least $1000?

For the credit cards, you will probably want to start paying off the lowest balances first.

If you provided the interest rates on each credit card, the answer might change, but for now stick with the lowest amount owed (ie. Capital One). Also are the amounts listed the required monthly payment or what you have decided to pay on each?

You said you have about $5200 in expenses (including 1200 for cc payments). I imagine some expenses are missing.

if you have more details to add, let us know.

otherwise you have 7890-5200 = 2690 left over and shouldn't have a problem paying them off.

This could be easy to get you on the right path.

let us know more details.

**disneysteve** · 12-15-2017, 08:22 AM

Originally posted by lashay33 View Post

Our net income is $7890 a month

Our household bills are $3400 regular bills
Gas for 3 cars is $180 a month
Grocery $400 a month

Credit cards that I need to pay off, and want this done by 2020 or sooner.

Welcome to the site.

You've listed monthly expenses of $3,980 and income of $7,890. That means there is $3,910 remaining. I think you're all set. If you pay $3,910/month, you will be debt free in 9 months. That's way sooner than 2020.

If you haven't already, set aside at least a $1,000 emergency fund.
All of your credit cards should be cut up or locked up and not used again.
You should be able to clean this mess up very quickly. By next year at this time, you should be doing great because you'll have an extra $3,910/month to put toward savings and other things.

Please keep us posted.

**disneysteve** · 12-15-2017, 08:24 AM

Two other things.

1. How did you end up almost $35,000 in debt? Be sure that you have fixed whatever got you in that situation.

2. Go over your monthly bills in detail to see where you can trim costs. How much can you lower that $3,980? Even if you can knock it down by a couple hundred, that just speeds up the debt repayment.

**bjl584** · 12-15-2017, 08:35 AM

Originally posted by disneysteve View Post

Welcome to the site.

You've listed monthly expenses of $3,980 and income of $7,890. That means there is $3,910 remaining. I think you're all set. If you pay $3,910/month, you will be debt free in 9 months. That's way sooner than 2020.

I'm going to guess that there isn't actually a $4000 surplus. From past experience, there is probably a lot of spending going on that isn't listed or even tracked. Unless there was a recent bump in income I'd guess OP is (was) living close to paycheck to paycheck. If not, they wouldn't have $35K in CC debt.

OP, I'd recommend tracking ALL of your expenses and income for at least a month so you can visualize exactly how much money you have and how much you are spending. (frequent small purchases add up.)

I'm sure that there is plenty of opportunity to cut expenses and boost income. There are a lot of smart people here. Many of them started out with a lot of debt themselves and were able to get it paid off.

As Steve mentioned, have you addressed the situation that got you into this amount of debt? If the spending hasn't stopped, then your efforts will be futile.

Please post as much info as possible about your circumstance.

**disneysteve** · 12-15-2017, 03:55 PM

Originally posted by bjl584 View Post

I'm going to guess that there isn't actually a $4000 surplus.

Probably not, but even if it's only half that, at $2,000/month, the debt is gone in about 18 months which still isn't bad. And if they can tighten their belts and trim the expenses, which I'm sure they can, the payoff debt gets that much closer.

It would be helpful to see the itemized budget. Where is that $3,400/month going exactly?

It would also be helpful to know where the debt came from. I believe CareCredit is for medical stuff. I wonder how much of the other debt also arose due to medical issues. Was there a period of decreased income due to one of you having a medical problem that interfered with work? Was there a stretch of unemployment where you turned to credit to stay afloat?

If you spending figure is accurate, this debt is gone in 9 months, as I said originally. If your figure is way off, then it'll take longer but still not that bad.

**lashay33** · 12-18-2017, 01:06 PM

Break down of the $3400 a month in (regular) bills
Mortgage 1558
Car 291

Car 289

Progressive 357 Car Insurance
LPL 230 Utlity
SPEC 105 Utlity
DTV 100 Direct TV
ATT 200 Cell phones
ATMOS 50 Utlity

SUDDENLINK 106 Internet

ADT 53 House alarm

FH 60 5th BAL 670 Fingerhut should be lumped with the credit card bills
$3400

The figures next to each cc is the monthly payment.

We had a income jump this past June hubby has went from about 70k a year to little over a 100k. Hubby on average brings home 1550-1600 a week. (I only make about net 845 bi weekly. I can work a part time if needed, I'm very open to that.) Ofcourse we started spending more, I paid 2 cards off in the summer, then daughters started using them for car repairs etc. Its pretty sad that we bring home about 8k a month and on average we have about 2000-2500 left over. Sometimes less than that. ( due to $1200 of that going to cc debt, and spending to much)YES we have stop spending so much, my question is do I pay a lump sum on a card each month? Double the payment? I want to elimate paying $1200 a month on credit cards as fast as I can. I will never allow this to happen again. We don't use the cards anymore just want them paid off. I'm just lost on how much should I pay a month, lump sum or extra payment. Care credit was when hubby had knee surgery. Any help is AWESOME!!

**disneysteve** · 12-18-2017, 02:09 PM

There are a few different issues here.

How to pay off the credit cards? There are 2 basic methods. One is to pay in order of highest to lowest interest rate. That will get you debt-free the fastest and save you the most money in interest charges. The other method is to pay smallest to largest balance and snowball the payment: each time one card gets paid off add the amount you were paying on that card to the next smallest.

Given the amount of money you have to work with, the difference between the two methods will be pretty minimal. Some people find paying off the smaller balances is more motivating to keep them on track and attacking the debt. So ultimately, whichever method you will stick with is fine.

As for the budget you listed, I'd make a few comments. First, it is far from complete. There are a lot of other expenses in your life that aren't included on that list, which is why you don't actually have $3,910 remaining each month. You need to get yourself an accurate and detailed listing of what you are really spending.

Regarding the things you did list, you seem to be paying a lot for internet so look into options there. $53/month for alarm monitoring is high. You should be able to get a better deal on that (unless you're stuck in a contract). How many cell phones are on that $200 plan.

Of course we started spending more

Why? Just because you started earning more? That's no excuse. Focus on getting your spending back to where it was when DH was earning 70K and use the difference to pay off the debt.

You also haven't mentioned anything about savings. How much is being put away for retirement? What do you currently have in savings, both taxable and tax-deferred accounts?

**Jluke** · 12-18-2017, 02:38 PM

Originally posted by lashay33 View Post

AND our monthly credit card payments are
$1200 a month

Credit cards that I need to pay off, and want this done by 2020 or sooner.

CAPITOL ONE $1900 $60 per month

DISCOVER 2276 $66.00 per month

Carecredit 2761 $92 per month

BARCLAY 2764 $60 per month

Wayfair 3539.90 $120 per month

UFCU 8600 $225 per month

LC( lending club) Biggest mistake 8400 $400 per month

Line of credit with bank $4515 UFCU LOC $157 per month

$1200 a month in CC's

Please help me tackle this!!

Thanks for following up with additional details - I was just wondering if we would hear back from you and then saw the posts.

For credit cards, I seem to think that you need to pick one that you want to pay off and just throw all the extra money towards it.

If you have the extra cash now to pay off one of the smaller amounts, just do it.

I reviewed your list of credit card amounts and using the line of thinking that you want to increase cash flow sooner I would suggest this or something similar.

I would start with CapitalOne since it is the lowest balance.

After that I would move to the Wayfair card as that would free up 120/month and the balance isn't as high as the others that require a high monthly payment.

Then Care Credit...

Again, the answer might change if we knew the interest rates for each card - that is really the key piece of info that is missing.

Minimum payments will get you nowhere, so keep that in mind.

**Gailete** · 12-22-2017, 04:27 PM

We had a income jump this past June hubby has went from about 70k a year to little over a 100k. Hubby on average brings home 1550-1600 a week. (I only make about net 845 bi weekly. I can work a part time if needed, I'm very open to that.

I suspect the major part of your problem is in these statements. For one I don't understand about you could work part-time if needed. If you are bringing home $1690 a month is that from full-time or occasional work or is it part-time already? I just didn't understand it. The way you refereed to what you made is interesting as if it isn't much of anything. To help with a bit better perspective. You make more per month on average than I bring in on SSD plus my other money making activities . Some families live on what YOU make. Perhaps with the help of food stamps, but that is all they have. Your income is a good one for a second income in the family.

I have seen on this forum that many come here and will say hubby or the two of them make $250K/year and then they mention the take home. Instead of thinking about what the gross amount of what you make is, you have to remember what you actually net (take home), and in your husbands' case $83K/year add in what you bring home and you are at $100K/year (unless I figured your earnings incorrectly). I'm guessing that your gross income is around $120-130K. Those numbers in your head will always tell you that you can afford whatever it is that you want. You can't unless you get those cards paid off. The advantage of being poor is never have those little guys in my head telling me I can afford anything!

I paid off my car and two small credit card bills this summer. I did it by paying extra. This year within the next few months I hope to pay off a rental property that we have. Then work on our house mortgage and credit cards. I determine an amount to pay extra and then pay it each month. Let me tell you on our income paying extra on any bill is difficult, almost painful. But when you see those bills gone, now that is exciting!

For ALL you credit cards, I would suggest at least rounding up to the nearest $5 for all your payments. As long as you don't charge another penny on the accounts, they will get paid off and sooner. Then make a commitment to pay extra on one of the bills, preferably your highest interest one, or one that you could perhaps round up enough money that by paying extra on the smallest bill, it will be paid off in a month or two and then use that money and add it towards the pay off of the next bill and so on.

You only asked for help with your credit cards, but if you have no savings, no retirement funds, etc. we can help you with that as well. Your budget looks ripe for shaving things off of it.

You mentioned your daughters using a card to pay for a car repair. Whose car is it? If theirs, why are you paying their car repair bills? I suspect that is why the high cell phone bill as well as you are paying for their cell phone. You didn't mention their age, but how much of the charging is due to them using the cards? For both car repairs and gas? Why are they using your cards to pay for these things? My kids were not allowed to drive until they could cover their own car insurance (teenage boys - yikes) and gas when borrowing mom's car. I don't know how old those girls are or what the relationship to them and your credit cards is like, but if they are old enough to drive, they are old enough to get a job and pay for the stuff they are charging on your cards and leaving you to pay. At the least, they should be paying off the credit cards for things they charged. A good experience for them about pulling that card out willy-nilly. It doesn't mean things are free.

How should I tackle this?