Your Thoughts on Our Situation

[vsjhoc]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

Many of the posts below (or above, depending on how you read your threads) tell the OP (kobe008) that $500 is too high for a car payment. I don't see that as helpful advice.

If the OP was considering buying a car with a $500 monthly payment, we could advise against it. But the OP has already signed the car note and may be stuck with it. If his credit is bad, he won't be able to refinance it at a better rate.

If he could renegotiate it, the best he would be able to do is get a lower monthly payment, but that could result in a longer term and higher total payments.

If he's upside down on the loan (owes more than the car is worth), then he can't sell the car to pay off the loan and buy a less expensive car, especially if there is a prepayment penalty.

So please let's stop beating him up about the car payment.

[LuckyRobin]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

I think some of the most basic places to cut are:

1. Cable or dish TV, get rid of it if you have it or at least downgrade to the cheapest plan.

2. If you carry long distance on your telephone, get rid of it. There is no reason to have it in this day and age of 2.5 cents a minute phone cards.

3. Internet--if you have cable or high-speed, downgrade to regular dial-up. If you have regular dial-up, look into netzero or people PC for $9.99 a month or for free.

4. Cell phones are a luxury. If you have them and are not locked into a contract, end your cell service. A little know fact is that you can still dial 911 in emergencies from an inactive phone. At the very least, if you have more than one phone, go down to just one. Or switch to Trac Phone or the like for much less money.

5. Stop using your dryer. It is a huge energy hog. Hang clothes to dry on drying racks or on hangers on your shower curtain rod above the bathtub. In nice weather use a clothesline. I have dropped my power bill $15 a month by not using a dryer. That's $180 a year. Before hanging clothes to dry, send them through a second spin cycle in the washer to squeeze out excess water and allow for shorter drying time.

6. Unplug anything electrical that isn't being used. Many appliances have a silent load. Make sure your computer monitor is turned off if you must leave your computer on all day. The monitor accounts for 90% of the power used by a computer.

7. Does your furnace have a programable thermostat? Programming your heater to go way down when you are not home saves money on heat. Or even remembering to turn it down when you leave the house empty should help.

8. Replace all your light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs. This saves us about 10% on our electric bill.

9. In cooking, cook double or triple batches of meals so you are only using the stove once to cook and only a little on the microwave to warm stuff up later. Freeze the excess so it does not go bad in the fridge.

10. Manage your leftovers. More money is wasted on food going bad than you can imagine. If it won't be eaten within a day or two, put a label on the container and freeze for future use. Do weekly menu planning for meals. This will aid in grocery shopping. If its a week where chicken is on sale, plan your meals around fried chicken, chicken enchiladas, TexMex chicken and rice, barbecue chicken, etc. If it is a good beef week, plan accordingly.

Hope that helps a little since I don't have any real information to go on yet regarding your budget.

[QueenOphelia]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

That car payment is the killer. $500 is just way too much for someone who is thinking of asking for government assistance. You don't mention how much you earn per year but it seems the obvious answer is you need more income. Unless your job requires you to be on call 24/7 you need to step up to the plate and work more hours.

Sell your stuff on ebay, get a second/third job, sell the car and buy a cheaper used one....etc. You must stop eating out...PERIOD.

Why are you having another kid if you are struggling to survive financially? I just don't understand that. It is not fair to your wife, exisiting child and the newbie. Why make an existing condition worse?

[cicy33]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

[QUOTE=QueenOphelia
Why are you having another kid if you are struggling to survive financially? I just don't understand that. It is not fair to your wife, exisiting child and the newbie. Why make an existing condition worse?[/QUOTE]


You know that had to be the saddest thing I have ever read replied to a post. Not all pregnancies are planned, he never said one way or the other. two of my husband's children were conceived on birth control. but no matter what that is just not a nice thing to say. Children are not commodities they are human beings. As far as the car thing, it is so easy for someone to say SELL IT! but first there has to be a buyer, that is not always easy and secondly we don't know how long he has had it, perhaps he got it while things were going well and then as it happens **it hit the fan. and perhaps it is the only vehicle. I agree IF they can sell it, great. I do agree he needs to check out the limits again on financial help. But I thought coming here when you were in trouble was to get advice, not chewed out and treated badly. We have all made mistakes. and people are focusing way to much on cable. Now, unless I can't pay my bills at all I am not doing without cable or the net. No way. I have to have some entertainment. Not to mention unless I want to spend several hundred dollars and buy a massive antenna that might or might not work I can't get reception where I live. we have tried! Maybe there are some other ways we could help them to trim the costs. To the poster. Try writing down all your expenses and see what you actually spend money on. Or for one month, use your debit card(if you have one) for everything and enter it into a quickbooks or similar format, then you can really track what you are spending. Then you might be able to figure out what can go. I will say the most obvious place that is easy to trim is eating out and cooking at home. I will agree with above that eating out is not a necessity. but if you must, only buy one soda and split it, the other gets water. not a huge savings but some restaurants up to $2.75 per coke, split a meal, even if they charge you a $1 or two it is cheaper than another entree. If you don't finish it , take it home. Taking home a small amount of steak cut up into small pieces and put with mixed vegetables makes a great stir fry and the meat was already there! agree with other poster, leftovers are very money saving. More information can help advise where to cut costs. For myself I can say I know how to cut the costs but I come here for support and continued reminders.

[Ima saver]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

Poor guy, I think we have scared him so much he is not posting at all. Plese come back and give us more details.

[QueenOphelia]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

Oh please...spare me the planned parenthood spew. Why is it sad to state the obvious? Reality is what life is about.....more people need to realize that they cause ALOT of their own problems.

[cicy33]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

what planned parenthood spew??? two of my dh's kids WERE conceived while on birth control. One with the pill and the second one they tried the shot. Very unplanned. but still very loved. My point was and is not all pregnancies are planned. and yes, we do cause our own problems but the point to this board was to offer help, advice and guidance not telling them how dumb they were. Everyone is here either because they have made mistakes (definitely me) or they are here to help someone to learn from their solutions. But just accusing and saying you are not smart is not helping. Everyone knows they make their own choices but not all choices are made the best, that is part of being human. we make mistakes and bad judgement calls. The wife is pregnant, the car is bought, the house is bought. These facts are already in existence. What he needs is advice how to crawl out of this hole. Not have more dirt thrown on it. He is obviously concerned enough to consider very drastic (though not realistic) measures to fix this. I just think that instead of spewing (to use your word) commands, we should be offering genuine ideas to help. Like, leftovers, coupons, saving what he can, cutting back where he can, within reason. He might be fine without the cable, who knows? Perhaps, he doesn't even have cable. Definitely need more info in order to be able to offer better ideas.

[PrincessPerky]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

Ditto the help not hurt. In general this board is full of help, and carefully worded advice....except this thread..................

Good for you if you never got into a mess, but telling him 'it's all your fault' is rude. I got into a mess, and I came here to help get out....I didn't get yelled at for idiocy (and yeah part of my trouble was my own idiocy) I only got support, I wish this guy could say the same........

[LuckyRobin]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

Cicy, the reason I focus on cable myself is because it is a luxury, pure and simple. And because I gave it up when I thought I couldn't because I needed to bring my budget back in line. I still have the $10 netflix program so I still have a bit of entertainment, but if I needed to, it would be the first thing to go and I'd switch to getting stuff just from the library. But entertainment, while fun, should go if you can't meet your bills and he can't meet this future bill. I practice what I preach on this issue. What's great is I am no longer addicted to TV and neither are my kids or husband. We don't plan our lives around what show is on that night and being sure to get home from whatever activity before it starts. We live instead of veg. But that's neither here nor there. And if we want to veg a little we watch the DVDs.

The crux of the situation was how this man was going to be able to afford the extra $95 a month to send a second child to day care. So assuming standard cable is $45 a month, cheap cell phone program is $35, and hanging clothes instead of using your dryer is $15 off the electric each month, that's $95 right there and will pay for the daycare. I also offered alternate options as well, like using cheaper internet, cancelling long distance or managing food waste issues in case one of those options was unappealing.

Sometimes people can't see the forest for the trees and what may work for me (giving up cable) but not for you (who doesn't want to, ever) is that he may very well need to. The focus goes to luxury first, always.

And Queen Ophelia--Try to keep in mind that it takes an extraordinary amount of courage to post on these boards for some people; to air their problems in a public forum for the first time. When people ask for help, you offer guidance with respect. That is what keeps these boards a nurturing atmosphere the majority of the time. Kicking them when they are down helps absolutely no one. Compassion goes a lot further in this world, and on these boards, than arrogance.

[tabbycat31]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

LuckyRobin, you mentioned a cellphone being a luxury. In many situations such as my own, a cellphone is my only phone. I work 12 hour days, 7 days a week and there's absolutely no point in having a home phone. Plus I don't like to have to pay extra for my privacy (very uncommon last name........ I do NOT want someone looking me up in a phonebook).

To some people a cellphone is a luxury. To others, it's their only phone.

[Snoopy2645]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

Well I am wondering what him & his wife bring in a year? I could help more if I knew that info it may not be worth it to pay for 2 kids in daycare!!! And without her working you could qualify for more maybe such as WIC their guidlines are high just type it in your search engine & find out what they are!!

[cicy33]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

absolute in agreement on all points. cable and internet for me is a luxurious necessity. I don't plan around tv but when I am home and want to watch something I want something on to watch. but we don't rent movies, or go to the movies (can you say waaaay to expensive!) so that is pretty much my only entertainment. cell phone is the same, we don't have a land line so we need our cell phones. But also like said, we need more info in order to help. Also, turning off lights and keeping tv's off would help. Just by staying up on the lights and stuff I dropped our light bill over $25 per month. Terrible waste of electricity.

[fairy74]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

I agree with a lot of what has been said here. I feel the need to point out that some of the criticism (or what may be seen as criticism) may have been caused by the OP himself, as if you read his first post he is extremely bitter and seems to direct this frustration at all poor people. I think sometimes when it appears that someone is blaming others and not accepting personal responsibility for the situation, it raises some people's hackles. It raised mine, although I do not think I was rude or unduely harsh in responding to the OP and I do hope he gets help from the many wise posts here.

[kobe008]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

Many of the posts below (or above, depending on how you read your threads) tell the OP (kobe008) that $500 is too high for a car payment. I don't see that as helpful advice.

If the OP was considering buying a car with a $500 monthly payment, we could advise against it. But the OP has already signed the car note and may be stuck with it. If his credit is bad, he won't be able to refinance it at a better rate.

If he could renegotiate it, the best he would be able to do is get a lower monthly payment, but that could result in a longer term and higher total payments.

If he's upside down on the loan (owes more than the car is worth), then he can't sell the car to pay off the loan and buy a less expensive car, especially if there is a prepayment penalty.

So please let's stop beating him up about the car payment.

Some info on my car. We have 2 vehicles, an older car and a minivan. The car is paid off. I used to own a truck but traded it in after we had our first kid for a minivan. It also saves us a bunch on gas. The car loan is with my parents. It is an interest free loan and I am paying them back. Reason for the loan is because they wanted to help us out when we had our first child and he was premature and in the hospital for a while. It is $500 because I want to get it paid off soon as I can. After the 2nd kid comes I will prolly ask to cut this payment down to $300 a month which I'm pretty sure my parents will agree to. As far as getting a 'real' loan if I had to that wouldnt be a problem. My credit score is excellent and when I had it checked by a co-worker (I work at a bank) she indicated she's only seen one score higher than mine ever.

[kobe008]

Re: Your Thoughts on Our Situation

I think some of the most basic places to cut are:

1. Cable or dish TV, get rid of it if you have it or at least downgrade to the cheapest plan.

We already have the cheapest plan. It would be extremely difficult for us to give up the cable totally without any other good reception in the area.

2. If you carry long distance on your telephone, get rid of it. There is no reason to have it in this day and age of 2.5 cents a minute phone cards.

Yesterday I signed up for Vonage and this will decrease my bill from $30 a month to $18.

3. Internet--if you have cable or high-speed, downgrade to regular dial-up. If you have regular dial-up, look into netzero or people PC for $9.99 a month or for free.

Cable internet would be a lot tougher than cable tv to get rid of. Every evening consists of me doing stuff online. I'd rather have internet than tv.

4. Cell phones are a luxury. If you have them and are not locked into a contract, end your cell service. A little know fact is that you can still dial 911 in emergencies from an inactive phone. At the very least, if you have more than one phone, go down to just one. Or switch to Trac Phone or the like for much less money.

Dont have a cell phone. I cant justify getting one when they cost more than a regular landline.

5. Stop using your dryer. It is a huge energy hog. Hang clothes to dry on drying racks or on hangers on your shower curtain rod above the bathtub. In nice weather use a clothesline. I have dropped my power bill $15 a month by not using a dryer. That's $180 a year. Before hanging clothes to dry, send them through a second spin cycle in the washer to squeeze out excess water and allow for shorter drying time.

Good idea. We do have one of those whirlpool side load washer and dryers that are sposed to save energy but I do realize that using it less is better.

6. Unplug anything electrical that isn't being used. Many appliances have a silent load. Make sure your computer monitor is turned off if you must leave your computer on all day. The monitor accounts for 90% of the power used by a computer.

I'm guilty here. I leave both our computers on all day, although the monitors are set to power down after 30 minutes of inactivity. I need to start shutting them down.

7. Does your furnace have a programable thermostat? Programming your heater to go way down when you are not home saves money on heat. Or even remembering to turn it down when you leave the house empty should help.

No programmable thermostat but its on the list of things to get.

8. Replace all your light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs. This saves us about 10% on our electric bill.

Already did this several months ago.

9. In cooking, cook double or triple batches of meals so you are only using the stove once to cook and only a little on the microwave to warm stuff up later. Freeze the excess so it does not go bad in the fridge.

10. Manage your leftovers. More money is wasted on food going bad than you can imagine. If it won't be eaten within a day or two, put a label on the container and freeze for future use. Do weekly menu planning for meals. This will aid in grocery shopping. If its a week where chicken is on sale, plan your meals around fried chicken, chicken enchiladas, TexMex chicken and rice, barbecue chicken, etc. If it is a good beef week, plan accordingly.

This is where we struggle the most. We eat out too much but have done better as of late. Thank you for all the great tips.